


Tales From a Chronic Dreamer

by Kriltch



Category: None - Fandom
Genre: dream - Freeform, nonsensical
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2020-01-24 06:41:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 57
Words: 34,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18566029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kriltch/pseuds/Kriltch
Summary: A collection an individual’s dreams ranging from childhood to modern day.





	1. Dream Snapshots

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 is a collection of fragments of long-since-had dreams. Each paragraph is its own dream, and likely not chronological. Some I remember more of, some less, but all originated so long ago that I’ve forgotten most of their parts. After chapter 1, entries are from a journal started in mid 2017.

In a field, an old and worn stone building has a large open cave directly under the base foundation. The day’s light, peeking through a space between where the building ends and the earth begins, illuminates the entire open cave.

* * *

I’m flying through a large labyrinthian area between black multi-storied gothic skyscrapers with shining white uniform windows. Everything from the windows to the sodium street lamps below is blanketed from the still lightly falling snow.

* * *

 

I’m flying a biplane to a floating island with a mansion atop. To the right and behind the mansion is a forest, while the mansion's driveway is cut off by the edge of the island. A room inside the abandoned mansion houses huge chess-piece-like brass sculptures.

* * *

I’m in a wooded area, so dense shade only specks of light peek to the forest floor. Light would be scarce if it were not for what I was traveling across, a ridge of softly glowing fountains and pools of countless shapes and sizes.

* * *

In a rickety three-storied townhouse my team, among other groups, enter to brave the supposedly haunted home and find the remaining items left for a grand scavenger hunt. The only sources of light was that of flashlights some people had or the light of the moonlight. When we tried to enter a room we immediately turned around due to none of us had a light to illuminate the absolute darkness. While exploring, I come across a side room with stored furniture and other items hidden under cobwebs and white sheets. Moonlight peeks through the window of dust, highlighting the porcelain dolls, wooden rocking horses, and other abandoned items in a spectral glow. Beyond this room is a toy store whose isles reach three stories high.

* * *

I'm in my home's basement (before grandma's room was put in). Everything is black and white, the back of the basement is piled to the ceiling with nondescript junk. My babysitter and my brother rush upstairs, leaving me alone by the door to the porch. I go outside. To my right on the gravel, I see a floating, two meter tall, carton of milk coming towards me. I'm too terrified to move. It asks me where its eyes are. I point to the right, large spherical eyes resting (or were the floating?) on the ground. He goes to them, puts then on the sloped part of the carton, and thanks me. I ask if he could help me get back my Frisbee. He agrees and we go to the side of the house. Rather than the big yard we had, there was a fence as tall as the house itself. The fence was position a foot between my house and they house on the other side. My Frisbee was on the other house’s roof. The milk carton suddenly has a ladder and retrieves my toy for me.

* * *

There’s a man-made river running through a building. Something about crocodiles and me and someone else following the river on concrete shores. We end up in a room with (memories of blue, maybe holograms?) and a (kitchen?). I’m talking with the person I was traveling with. I think we were trying to find something?

* * *

I’m in a rusted desert with the sun beating down and the sand being blown across the ground. There are rock spikes all over the place, many having holes in them. There’s a cliff face in the distance.

* * *

A dragon is flying over a manmade gorge of wood. The sides are all wooden planks and the ledges is finer wood and thatch.

* * *

During autumn, I’m at a place with a lot of people/creatures and buildings. I'm in one of the buildings, a home, someone. The base floor is grassy, like it was where an animal was kept. The opposing wall to the staircase is a fence, the gate opened slightly. There are countless creatures roaming around, like a creature with a long neck or a beetle-like creature. Among the masses are plenty of humans, some in suits of fantasy armor and others are in modern street clothes. It's outdoors in a place that my memory says is neer my home, but the topography of the land and the buildings and the plants around are completely unique. I also get the faint memory of that tree that was cut down in my backyard when I was young, the one I liked to climb on below the upper deck.

* * *

A long ship, full with over 300 people, is set to burn. The caster of the flames saves everyone after discovering that many of those on the ship were women and children.


	2. A long time gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first of two dreamed 07/06/2017.

I came up to what I thought was a town haphazardly placed in a barren mesa. Unfortunately, it was a train junction. I biked along the track trying to find anyone that could help me. I eventually came across a young teen on his phone leaning against a tin building. I asked him where the nearest town was. He pointed to a large building behind some hills. I then biked to the town, wanting to find respite from my exhaustion. I had little water and no food for a few days along the roads parallel to the desert of Atacama.

It had been five years since I started my trek from my home in the US. I planned to bike to the southernmost city of South America, Puerto Navarino. The portion of the town I road up too was more church than town. Atop a rocky hill was a huge cathedral that eclipsed any church I’d ever seen prior. The building had a landslide of shops, then houses, then farm, falling from its perch with layers of flat land dividing the districts. The everything had to distinct parts. The enormous cathedral overlooking everything, and a smaller building in front with a large domed roof.

I came up to what I thought was a town haphazardly placed in a barren mesa. Unfortunately, it was a train junction. I biked along the track trying to find anyone who could offer aid. I eventually came across a young man on his phone leaning against a tin building. I asked him where the nearest town might have been. He pointed to a building peeking out behind a few hills. I then biked to the town, wanting to find respite from my exhaustion. I had no food and little water for several days as I made my way south parallel the Atacama desert.

It had been five years since I started my trek from my home up north. I had planned to bike to the southernmost city of South America, Puerto Navarino. The district I rode up too was more church than town. Atop a rocky hill sat a tremendous cathedral that eclipsed any I’d ever seen prior. The building had a landslide of shops, then houses, then farm. Each district was carved as flat terraces. The cathedral overlooked all.

The front of the church cut through the mountain with a black marbled street that separated the face of the church and the shopping district. The entire district had been cut as caves into the stone. The natural stone sky of sparkling geodes gave the impression of a mall at night. Many of the stores had a maximum of two walls; some had none. The shops nearest to the church were laden with  smooth marble floors and stairs carved into the mountain the town dug into. Even the streets, which had many people walking along them and lacked vehicles, were made of smoothed stone. The colors of the town ranged from rusty iron to canyon orange with white speckles of marble both artificially distributed as well as naturally formed. I rode parallel to the shops and the church looking for more help. After many evil glances, I decided there would be friendlier people further down the mountain.

I passed through the shopping district. I rode below the overhang to keep cool while passing the more wealthy homes before I made my way to the exurbs, just above where the farms began. The farms were next to a river that was not at the top of the mountain but flowed from under the earth to overtake the surface. I rode up to the river and laid on a bed of grass next to a shanty home. The grass was wet with dew and a small dog yipped at me. I rested for a while, but I knew my body needed a roof rather than the sky.

I had been traveling for days with no bed, no roof over my head, and no warm food. I got up and wobbled my way over to the poorly constructed house. A man in overalls, seeming to be in his early twenties, answered the door. I told him I had been traveling for many days and asked if I could rest in his home. With politeness, he said that I could spend the night in his home and that his family would even provide food for me. I was incredibly grateful.

The Home had been divvied into three sections. The bedroom, combined with the living room, was the room we entered into. A bathroom was walled off to the right and the kitchen rested on the opposite end of the small almost trailer sized home. The man’s, I presumed, mother was cooking and the smell that made my stomach growl audibly. The man and the mother sat at the table that was positioned in the center of the living room as I laid on the bed.

I closed my eyes to rest as I weaved the tale of how I had left home on a whim to travel. I had run out of money and resources a few months ago, which had been difficult. I opened my eyes as the mother proclaimed the food was ready. I had not noticed the father enter the home and he had apparently been listening to my story. The father looked eerily similar to my uncle. Despite the similarity, my mind knew it could not be him, he was married to someone else and had a small child back in the US. How could he possibly be here in the middle of South America with these strangers?

The butterflies in my chest stirred ever more violently. The more I talked with the man the more it seemed he truly was my uncle. I eventually told him that he reminded me of my uncle. His face sank as if he had seen a ghost. This must have jolted his memory. This man was indeed my uncle who had survived a war that had killed his wife and child three years ago. He told me that he had woken up with no memory and then was promptly lectured about the war. He was ushered aboard a plane to fly away from the turmoil. He found a new wife and step-son when he moved to this city. The city itself was out of the world's affairs and provided protection.

After hearing a war had broken out I had to get home, which my uncle and his new family offered to take me, to see if my uncle's sister, my mom, was alright. We flew and drove back to my neighborhood, back to my home. There were no cars or people way up to the house. We had passed over a major city that remained as large crater surrounded by miles of dead trees around. My neighborhood had many brown leaves of fall as well as many overgrown plants covering the homes and roads. Despite not a soul being around, I still wanted to make it to my home, expectedly finding it empty.

The front of the church cut through the mountain, with a black marbled street separating the face of the church and a shopping district cut as caves into the stone. The natural stone sky of sparkling geodes gave the impression of a mall at night with many shops having only one or two walls. The shops nearest to the church were laden with  smooth marble floors with stairs carved into the mountain the town was built into. Even the streets, which had many people walking along them with no cars, were made of smoothed stone. The colors of everything ranged rusty iron to canyon orange, with white speckles of marble both artificially distributed as well as naturally formed. I rode parallel to the shops and the church looking for someone to help me. After many dirty looks I decided there would be friendlier people further down the mountain.

I passed through the shopping district, riding below the overhang to keep cool, passed the richer houses and made my way to the exurbs, just above where the farms started. The farms were next to a river that was not at the top of the mountain but emerged from underground to overtake the surface. I rode to the river and laid on a bed of grass next to a shanty town home. The grass was wet with dew and a small dog yipped at me. I rested a while but I knew my body needed a home rather than dirt.

I had been traveling for days with no bed, no roof over my head, and no warm food other than a hare I had hunted and was too hungry to properly cook. I got up and wobbled my way to the home I had rested next to. A man in overalls, seeming to be in his early twenties, answered the door. I asked if  could rest in his home and that I had been traveling for many days without much rest. He was kind and said that I could rest in his home, and that his family would even provide food for me, to which I was extremely grateful.

The Home was divided into three sections. The bedroom, combined with the living room, was the room we entered from the door. A bathroom was walled of to the right and a kitchen on the opposite end of the small almost trailer sized home. The man’s, I presume mother, was in the kitchen cooking something that made my stomach growl audibly. The man and the mother sat at the table that was positioned in the center of the room and I lay on the bed to the left. My eyes were closed in rest, but I told them my story of how I had left home on a whim to travel and how I had run out of money and resources a few months ago. I opened my eyes as the mother said the food was ready. I had not noticed the father enter the home and he had apparently been listening to my story. The father looked exactly as my uncle did. Despite the similarity my mind knew it could not be him, he was married to someone else and had a small child back in the US, how could he possibly be here in the middle of south america with these strangers.

It was very strange, the more I talked with the man the more it seemed like he was my uncle. He had all the same hobbies. I eventually told him that he reminded me of my uncle. This must have jolted him because he looked as if he had seen a ghost. Apparently this was my uncle, who had survived a war that had killed his wife and child three years ago. He told me that he had woken up with no memory and was immediately told about the war and that he had to get on a plane to fly away from the turmoil. He found his new wife and his step child and had moved to this city as it was out of the world's affairs and would provide protection for them.

After hearing a war had broken out I had to get home, which my uncle and his new family offered to take me, to see if my uncle's sister, my mom, was alright. We flew and drove back to my neighborhood, back to my home. There were no cars or people way up to the house. We had passed over a major city that remained as large crater surrounded by miles of dead trees around. My neighborhood had many brown leaves of fall as well as many overgrown plants covering the homes and roads. Despite not a soul being around I still wanted to make it to my home, expectedly finding it empty.


	3. A Whole New World I Already Knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second of two dreamed on 07/06/2017

I come up to a campus-like five story building. I want to look out from atop this building, so I head inside an elevator and ride it to the top floor. There's a stranger in the elevator with me who does not get out at the top floor, due to it apparently being restricted. The floor seems to be in development as there are unpainted walls, items in plastic wrap, and people moving vending machines and crates into place. I step off the elevator and act as though I'm unseen and supposed to be there. From the hallway, I enter to a garage/hanger area where the workers pester me as they don't know who I am. Realizing the ruse was up, I sprout wings and fly out the hanger door and swing around to land on the top of the roof.

The landscape before me is breathtaking. Below me is a hill of grand gothic buildings, cathedrals, and modern multi-storied buildings (no skyscrapers). Beyond the city, the land drops off and a sea of trees continue as the land’s new flooring. further still, to the right, is an enormous passenger plane with a forest growing on it's back. Far to the left is a domed, mist laden, city, with a few domed buildings towering over the rest. Even further to the left of the city is a lake, which is fed by a wide waterfall leading to yet more forest above.

**Side note:** This "domed" city reminds me, even within the dream itself, of a previous dream: {I don't remember what exactly lead to it, but I was having some sort of conflict with people in a street overlooking a cliff side. the street was walled with a large meshed, metal fence that curved in to shade the street. This street was parallel to a public "garden" of sorts with round patches of flowers and grassy fields with a few organized trees. Behind me was the building I had come from. It was a two story victorian style building. On the bottom floor was a workshop, store, and living space. Behind the front store was a staircase leading up a floor with a door to another street. Two storied side I faced an angled checkered pattern of green, yellow, and red stained glass.

I turn around. To my right was a dingy victorian/medieval city. To my left, beyond the cliff the fence lined, was a pit with a mist laden lake/river (can't remember) at the bottom, almost out of eyesight. The other side of the lake/river was a rocky wall that towered over the city, with a few streams of water flying over its sides, creating mist both below and above. On top of the rock face was a misty forest. the rocks had little vegetation growing on them, and the canyon snaked along the side of the city.}

Not sure what prompted me, but I felt the need to get away as they have seen that I'm not human.

Next, I find myself climbing the lower part of a mountain beyond the cliffside of the domed city. The trail gave way to a road of torn away trees that lead up to a gaping cave. I ask the cave mouth if (forgotten) lives here, which a dragon comes out to respond. Apparently dragons and humans have a long standing hatred of each other and he is hostile upon seeing me. I show him I too am a dragon and we must stop (forgotten) from creating strife with the humans.

I then find myself recruiting another dragon at a shallow lake between the domes city and the plane. The center grove is his island with blue glowing plants inhabiting it. The (forgotten entity) we must stop has sworn to kill many humans (can't remember why (probably from castlevania series memory)). We must stop him.


	4. Wrested Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 08/19/2017

Our society is heavily regulated. Our lady oversees us as we live our bisected lives. We use a blue serum that keeps us at one of two stages in our lives. We are either children eight to ten or adults in their late twenties.

The adults might be okay with how our society works. But we, the children, are not so inklined to the idea. Over the years, the children fabricated a code to communicate without the ever seeing eye of our lady, nor any other of the adults, knowing what was said.

An adult walks into a bar turned children's play room. He looks around, thinking the way the children had set up their trash was some form of code of their code. The children in the room are coy and tease the man as he tries to decipher it. Eventually they start playing crude tricks on the man, moving objects around while he isn’t looking. The children use this to divert the adults attention, as their true secret code is faint body language so imperceptible that the children like to think of it as telepathy.

On an astroturf patio on the outskirts of the lady’s domain, a group of children and their mentors are having a lovely afternoon. One of the boys needs to use the bathroom, so he slips away. Upon finding a bathroom, he’s finds his mentor had followed him and waits outside the door for him to finish. The mentor too doesn’t think that the lady’s vision is all correct. The boy admits to his mentor that he wants to grow up, he wants to experience being a teenager or getting old. The man wants to help but he doesn’t know how. The others from the patio come up to the boy and his mentor. The boy exits the bathroom to meet with them. One of the other children admitted their plan to overthrow the lady. Apparently the adults had their own wish to help, only that they were reluctant to.

Seeing the people scheming a revolt to remove her, the lady unleashes a swarm of robots. The robots quell the inserection by removing any suspected of harboring ill feelings of the system. Many people die, the virus-looking robots cutting them apart with sharp blades. The boy tries to fend them off and sends one of his friends to take care of the lady, as she would more expect the boy to carry out that task.

At the top of the stairs one of the lady’s killer robots are attacking the boy’s bully. The friend helps him, smashing the machine. The bully was on his way to stop the madness himself. They both run down the stairs before confronting a large burly man guarding the lady’s door. The bully jumps on the man allowing the friend to slip by to take care of the lady.

She breaks down the door; a second of hesitation as she beholds their lady. She rushes at the lady with her impromptu weapon that was a pipe. Before the lady could respond, the friend thrusts the pipe into the lady’s head. As she is not that strong, it only embeds itself surface deep, but this is enough distraction to grab the lady’s head with both hands. The friend twists and pulls with all his might, feeling the tendons snap.

The friend tries to stop the robots from attacking, but instead an alarm sounds and a security robot stops her. Everyone runs to the bridge linking their island to other land. Droves of people cross the bridge, the robots being pushed back by a few adults to let the others cross. The boy carries his distraught friend in a waggon. She is grieving, the realization that she had killed someone clenching her shivering form.


	5. Short Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several dreams that are too short to earn their own page.

**Ghost Hunting On the Beach:**

09/29/2017

The sun has just set. Using a candle and some herbs, I search the beach for spirits. It is some eastern holiday where everyone is outside crowding the beaches and streets, partying late into the night with their families. Some plants luminesce in response to the large parties fires, a sign that there are spirits about.

I come to a beach house with a bridge to the beach that stands on a three-storied wooden tower. The bridge itself has railing, decor, and general style of crimson eastern buddhist temples. It arches from the top of the tower down to the beach, over a lot of plant-blanketed dunes. I search around the bridge for a while, trying to find exactly where the spirit is.

Each time my candle goes out I light it up with a special kept everlasting flame. I spend a while searching the area for the two spirits I sensed, and I find one inside the building the the north of the bridge. I’m reluctant to ask the family to let me in to check for ghosts, knowing they’ll say no and think I'm crazy.

* * *

**Crazy**

09/29/2017

Two ladies are fighting on top of a car while that car is being rammed by a truck.

* * *

**Long Ship:**

05/12/2018

A long ship full over over 300 people is set to burn. the caster saves everyone after discovering that they had many women and children.

* * *

**Horse-Rabbit Head**

06/23/2018

There was a woman with a white horse-rabbit head. She reached into her chest and pulled away her flesh to reveal two more horse-rabbit heads.

* * *

**Ritual**

07/11/2017

A man walks up to a stone pillar then pricks it. The wound begins to drip with black blood. The man speaks with a foreign tongue, proclaiming that he had found the [forgotten]. Two other men come up to stand next to him. A monster bursts from underneath the statue.

* * *

**Dunes**

07/2?/2019.

I’m crossing great dunes with strangers. We enter the forest threshold of gnarled trees and come to a graveyard. People had followed us, hoping to gain something of a treasure from the crypt.

* * *

**Bridge**

08/21/2019.

A blue bridge wormed through rocky spires and off into the horizon. Below the bridge stirred an ocean. The ocean, over many years of growth, now covers parts of the bridge during high tide.

* * *

**Aurora**

09/29/2019

Late at night on an expansive and flat beach, a group of beings made of energy gossip. One of them erupts in a torrent of fire, scaring the others away. One of the beings tries to get the attention of someone else in the distance by trailing a green aurora from their arm. They also do this to show they are capable.


	6. Amalgam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 05/15/2018.

Eight figures stand atop the hill, I one of them. We quietly chatter amongst ourselves. Each one of us wait for our true weapon return, knowing they will arrive shortly. A group of individuals arrive, brandishing their own weapons. We’re unable to discern whether they are bandits or soldiers.

  
Just as we are about to receive them another group holding our weapons comes up behind them, claiming the first group did them some sort of injustice. They fight, us melting into purple and pitch as they kill each other. After the battle is over, when none remain alive, we reform into a great grey beast. We search for a bit, to see what has happened, then leave.


	7. Sized People + Aliens & Zombies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not sure of the date, but these two dreams are at least a decade old.

**Sized People**

I was with a malnourished child in a rainforest when a flood hit and we were swept away. The overflowing river seemed to go along a predicted path as other people were going about their lives just beyond the floodplain. I took the child beyond the tree line and across a village of people the size of ants. They shot at my arm causing it to sting.

We then made our way across several tennis courts with larger and more gigantic people the further we went. When we got to people our size, we ask if we could stay. For some reason, we’re in trouble. They agree to let us stay. At this time I realized I was holding the child with one arm around his chest. We are lead to place where children the same age as the one I had been traveling with are.

There were two rooms, both filled with chairs. There was a chair that, after some tweaking, became much more of a lounge chair than it was before. We sat down to eat and I told the child not to eat too much or drink too much because he would get sick. He ignored me. After taking about three bites, he vomited. 

Later, I was in a fight some dinosaur creatures in a wooded park with a pavilion. Me and about two other people from the place the child and I came to were there fighting together.

We decided to go to a clothing store. I looked for shirts I wanted but they were too high to reach. The completely open store was almost three stories high with shirts hanging from the ceiling and all along the walls and floor. I tried to use metal hook to grab one of the ceiling shirts. Even that couldn’t reach. We end up getting underwear and grey sweatpants. The child refused to wear a shirt.

* * *

**Aliens & Zombies**

In a futuristic world, aliens were taking over while a zombie outbreak was beginning.

First, we were on the ground in some kind of warehouse with people oblivious to the zombie outbreak brewing and more attentive to the alien invasion. They were there to hide from the aliens. Then, two guys were fighting in a higher floor of a skyscraper. A cyborg showed up, then flew away by transforming into the helicopter.


	8. Theft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another dateless dream. Seems to also be one at least a decade old. It’s a darker dream, but not quite a nightmare.

I was in the back of a friends van traveling with three others in search for ancient ruins, and hopefully treasure. The floor of the van had a layer of stuff, which me and one other laid on top of. While driving through a city, we had to stop for a relieve ourselves and to gather general supplies.

  
Our spot would only allow for an hour before we would receive a fine. That was, unless one of us was in the car to pull it away when asked, which I volunteered to do. The parking lot was small, squared off from a larger lot lining a shopping strip. It would only be able to admit twelve regular vehicles at a time. Between the early hour and the quiet from the now empty vehicle, I fell asleep.

  
I was rudely woken up by the car moving. I gazed out of the window, seeing the small parking lot pass by. Quiet. Why hadn’t I been woken up by the others, why was no one talking? Careful to not rustle the junk I was on, I peeked at the driver's seat. A figure in a hoodie I did not recognize was driving.

  
Before surprise had a chance to abandon me, I shoved their head against the window. The man shouted at me and pulled out a gun. He tried point it at me while I kept his head firmly pressed against the now bloodied glass. I grabbed the man’s wrist and pushed the gun to aim above my head. I screamed at him, taunting him into shooting. He didn’t. I somehow managed to pull the gun from his grip and put the barrel to his head. He pulled the door latch and we fell out onto the street. Before I had a chance to aim at him again, he was off running into the darkness.


	9. Murder + Racing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think this one might have been around 2013. The first part, “Murder”, is rather gruesome.

**Murder**

There was an old man who lived alone and away in a cottage. One day, two villagers who hated him deeply came for a visit. The two tie the old man to a wall. One of the villagers beats the man while the other heats up the old man's branding irons in the fire. They take turns burning and beating the poor old man, wicked grins pulled across their faces.

 

While the two left to eat the old man's food, he freed himself and fled. Unhappy with their missing play thing, the two decide to methodically destroy all of the old man’s belongings. A third finds the old man. He takes a cast iron, four pronged poker and impales the old man. The red tips sizzle as they pass through and out the old man.

 

A little girl who cared for the old man hurries after hearing the two villagers had left for the cottage. She finds the villagers drinking and eating the old man’s food. She rushes upstairs to see how badly the villagers had treated the old man. She finds him unmoving, slumped over with the trident in his chest. When she confronts the two villagers she screams at them. The villagers, mortified, flee, saying they only poked him with a hot iron.

* * *

**Racing**

A race is held where competitors must swim through ruins of sunk ships. The woman and the men competitors must swim through and run across ships that break through the surface. The victor is not solely determined by who crosses the finish line first, but also who had the most impressive rout and style while racing. Highest jump, most diverse styles  of swimming, vaulting and weaving through the slippery ships, and other factors are considered to pick the victor. In addition to the perilous path where once slip could spell the end of a career, or even a life, one final obstacle faces the racers at the finish line. A rope looks down upon those who approach taunting with a great number of points if it is vaulted. Not every racer is even capable of clearing the rope.

 

During the first race in the tourney, a known favorite who seemed to liable to take the first round without opposition fails the final jump. Fortunately for her, her maneuvers during the race still allowed her to win, but not by the landslide that was expected.

 

The second race had a promising newcomer from a distant land. Not only did she finish first, she also cleared the final vault with a jump higher than any of the contestants yet by a sizable margin. She does not have long to revel in her victory as the previous rounds winner berates her and claims she has no place in the race. This race is a time honored tradition of her people and this foreigner besmirched it with her presence. The previous winner insinuates that, because no one knows her, she is likely to lose favor with the judges.

 

The races host walks through an open room filled with computers and people keeping up the live broadcast. Without breaking stride, he talks with a mob of journalist crying out for their questions to be heard. He stops. There’s a child blocking his progression. He asks one of his attendants why a child stands before him. The child runs off and disappears. The child pops up to harass the employees by hitting them or running their hands across the keyboards then slips away before anyone can catch her. Then the child unplugs the rooms power. Everything goes black.


	10. Give Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This dream is one of those where I can see little in that actually relates to what I experienced in my life at the time.

A cabin-girl was sticking tight to her captain on an classical ship that traveled between worlds. The whole crew were fervently attempting to escape, hopping from world to world. They had been on the run for too long; they had run out of fuel and had to stop.

Fortune turned against them as their abrupt landing interrupted a gathering of old men in black cloaks. The black clouds, bristling with lightning swirled and heaved above. The ghostly light in the center of the circle of men fell dim as the group let down their raised arms. Their ritual thwarted, they wished to take out their frustration on the hapless crew. The captain tried to get the ship up and running to flee. He wasn’t fast enough.

The men whose faces were obscured morphed all who could be found into stone chips. The small cabin-girl, who hid away during the raid, picked up her captain and as many of the crew she could as she abandoned the ship. She scuttled past the hedge lining the cultish circle and hid behind a nearby building. The cloaked men did not follow, seemingly bound to the ritual’s grounds. Voices of the men barged into the cabin-girl’s mind, berating her.

Turning around, the cabin-girl jumped at seeing a woman in tattered armor. The woman took the cabin-girl by the hand, the cabin-girl’s other arm full from carrying her crew, and led her to a seemingly innocuous wall. The woman waved her hands about in an incomprehensible maner. A section of the ground lifted up to reveal a hidden compartment. Within the compartment was a crucible with angled features. The armored woman told the cabin-girl to store her crew there, and that they would be safe. So she did and the crucible, now filled with the stone chips that was her crew, sunk back into the ground. Two from the lady’s company with whose clothes were too tattered arrived. Their plan, for the time being, was to keep the cabin-girl safe from the cloaked individuals until they could find a way to rescue her crew.

Fortune only allowing for so much, one of the cloaked men’s acolytes, though they seemed more as gross slaves, had seen us. These people, from what the cabbin-girl could understand, were not the ones the cloaked men were after, they were after her. She did not want what happened to her crew happen to these kind people. She left the armoured lady and her group and gave herself over to the cloaked men, hoping for their pardon.

The attempted ritual was not some sort of abomination as the cabin-girl had assumed, it was their endeavor to return to their home world. Upon arriving back to the ship, she observed the rest of the cloaked men ambling about the vessel, resolute to figure out how to use her ship. They demanded the cabin-girl to show them how the ship worked. She, like the captain, were of a select few how had the potential of controlling the mechanism that worked the ship. And it was for this reason she had been a cabin-girl at all; she, a little girl, unrelated to the crew. Her grain of power was not enough for them to release their hostages. They had made it a point of keeping the remanence of the stone chip crew that they had found aboard the ship.

It took seven long years for the cabin girl to firstly be able to move the ship through worlds then to be able to direct which worlds they would sail to. The cabin-girl steered the ship to return to the world which she had hidden away most of her crew. She had made a deal with the cloaked men that, if they would return her crew back to their former selves, she would take them back to their home.

They kept their promise. The, no longer small, cabin-girl was reunited with her captain who had not aged a day. Upon recognizing the cabin-girl, the captain took her arm to lead her away. The cabin-girl assured them there was no longer any danger.

With her command of the ship, the cabin-girl’s confidence and maturity had grown greatly; she seemed almost as a different person to her crew. She sailed her returned crew and the cloaked men to the cloaked men’s world. After the departure of her unwanted guests, she told the crew she would take them home as well. She informed them that it was now safe for them to return home, that she had righted their wrongs.

One by one they acquiesced, still astonished that this was the same cabin-girl they once knew. When it came to the captain, he asked what she wanted. She stood, thought, and responded. She wasn’t ready to go home yet, there was something she needed to see to. Something she had done during those seven years.

With the captain unboarding the ship, the new captain sailed off by herself.


	11. Brother’s Quest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another older dream. This one is also a lot less structured than most. As we had to look for wired phones on walls, this dream must have taken place quite a while ago.

I told my brother and my dog that we should go hunting in the woods. When my brother said we didn’t have any hunting rifles, I said we should try with our bare hands. So we went off hunting with only our dog and the clothes on our back.

Something happened; I got hurt and lost unconscious. Luckily there was a house nearby that my brother dragged me to. The house was worn away by a body of water beside. Two walls had already been completely swept away. He tried looking for a phone to call 911. There was none. Then a strange man came.

The egg shaped man asked if something was wrong. My brother asked if the man knew where a phone was so he could call 911. The man gave him a quizzical look and asked what 911 was. My consciousness saw through my dog’s eyes. I had no control, only the ability to see what my dog saw while having my own thoughts. My dog asked the man if he could help me, my body lying nearby unconscious.

The man lead us to the council. The council is curious as to how we had come to their dimension. 

The snowy city is draped many multicolored lights illuminating the starry night. The spaces between few one storied buildings is flooded with tents of all shapes and sizes filled with warm glows of fires and life. My brother goes to find something that can wake me up as does our dog. They apparently have to find people with certain abilities such as two with strength, one with life, and one with sleep.


	12. Missing Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my older and more vividly remember dreams. There are two distinct part that somehow link up with each other and continue one singular narrative.

A friend, though I knew not who they were, and I were sitting on a bench below a pier. The wooden structure wore the ravages brought by neglect on its many legs. It was a miracle it was still standing. The corpses of ships once pampered by many a sailor now laid rotting on their sides all along the new desert. My friend’s tabby tail swayed rhythmically behind the bench.

In the distance, on the yellow-tinged marriage of the horizon, was a black smudge coming towards us. The image of the figure sharpened into a large, long black snake. It slithered up to us and asked if this was the (forgotten) sea.

“Yeah, it was,” I said. I told her about how all of the water had suddenly vanished about a year ago. I asked if she was planning to traverse it.

She said she was. She needed to get back to her home island, the island somewhere far off in this sea while not being on any maps. She was the princess of that hidden island. She and her father had come to the mainland to greet the rest of the world after years of isolation. Things went well at first, but her father did not return from one of his meetings one day. She was whisked to their ship and headed for home when the sea vanished from underneath them. She desperately wishes to return home.

My friend and I told her that there was no way of getting anywhere in the sea except by walking or rather slithering in her case. She turns around to head back into the wasteland of salt and sand. My friend and I sit and watch for a minute before I get up to go and get her. She had been wandering for who knows how long, and likely would not survive for however long it would take to find the island.

We decided that the best course of action was to see a shaman. They might have been able to guide is in the direction of her lost home. To get to the shaman we had to travel through an area with sparse trees and grass twice as tall as any of us.

During our journey, a small plump, white creature joined our troupe. They were proficient with any manner technological. Though their insights did not keep me from having to carry our lost princess on my shoulders.

While making our way down the tiny path designed for travelers like us, our round travel buddy noticed on her scanner that there was some larger than average life from somewhere near us. My memory of the area snapped back; the towering blades of green was an absolute shelter for many bandits and predators.

I shout into the thicket for our stalker to leave us alone lest they face the consequences. The blip on the radar said I was ineffective. Rather than let them have the element of surprise, I breach the thicket.

I grabbed ahold of the creature that was the blip. It shouts at me to release it. It turned out not to be a bandit or predator bot an officer of the law sent to catch them. I apologize to them. Thinking it would save us time we might have spent in some holding facility, I tell them of our quest.

They stay very quiet and inform me for us to just continue on their way. I assume that they are still planning to catch the predator or bandit; and, if I hadn’t given them away already, they still might.


	13. Gilded Age Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Though the first dream is obviously more tinged with fantasy, It held a sci-fi vibe while it was happening. The second dream is a fragment of a dream which I only remember one room from.

**Black Dragon**

A newly hatched dragon is found. Woods, green in the darkness twilight bared, surrounded the stained oak caravan. The hatchling was not of the female who pulled the wagon on. She had herself been asleep for many seasons. The two humans she travels with were born and raised with dragons being remembered through ink and pages rather than blood and bone. The hatchling may not have been brought by her, however, she will duly raise it as her own. There was no choice in the matter, there are no others capable. No others Alive.

She had fought the news as it was given to her. She lashed about, rampaging the empty meadow where she had been awoken and crawled out from underneath. She had been put to sleep by her elders, unknowing as to why at the time. The news that was provided to her by the two she is traveling with. How her kind had disappeared unexpectedly in a single night. The cause was, is humans. Yet no one could tell her how. The did not know. Her rage settled, and she eventually came to terms with her life in her new world. She had given up hope, of ever finding answers. She now holds in her arms a miracle.

The party enters the forest she once called her home. The hatchling is no longer such. It is time. The humans protested, “it’s too dangerous”, “a black one of your kind is said to kill anything that flies in this area”, “Do you not hear the hoots of owls, did you not hear the melodies of daytime songbirds?”, “Please, you are the last, do not do this”. She takes to the skies. Her young, and the human company, look up with dazzled expressions. The young stumbles to the skies after her. The young feels the call too, by the sky itself.

They fly for minutes, then hours, their human companions unable to do anything but wait. They come back down, no sign of this supposed terror of the valley. The female tells of a strange building set high in the mountains. They all agree to go there.

They scale the mountain then come to an observatory. There is one person there who welcomes them all without fear. The usual questions are asked, and the hermit answers with enthusiasm. Why were they alone so high in the mountains: because they preferred to work alone. The topic of the myth surrounding the valley is broached. They know this too, and explain how it is not truly a dragon; or is no longer; or never was. Political powers set the creature in motions soon after the disappearance. The hermit suggests that it may be a safety measure in case any were still alive. Not all had died that night, as evidenced by the one standing before the hermit, and a few had returned to this valley in their lifetime. They were swiftly done away with.

* * *

 

**Gilded Age Room**

The room was lavish, as though it had been built during the gilded age and left untouched since then. With turquoise drapes, carpets, and tiles that edged white, the room breathed with the feeling of a pond where one may find cattails swaying and ducks bobbing. Everything had golden engravings from the too soft couch to the ornate lamps on either side of the shawled king-sized bed. The rooms floor carried an inch of crystal clear water with lily pads in pink lotus flowers vignetting the space.


	14. Tourney

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This dream is more framentary than most of the others. And I think it actually might be two seperate night’s dreams that happen to continue off of one another (as some of my dreams tend to do, though my memory is foggy on that.)

One violent eruption of light rained molten white, killing many of the competitors. Despite the apocalypse above, many were still fighting along the central red road.  
I was off by a cabin with what was left of our impromptu army. I had joined the tournament with hopes of winning. Those hopes were dashed with the display of magical might before me. Our impromptu leader was not deterred. She had her own might, being able to interact with a pocket dimension of her own design.  
I had joined alone, not knowing anyone else. Still unwise as most of the lone wolves were first to lose. It was the ones who had come with teams that were still out there. I was fortunate to be scooped up by our leader when I was. I was no longer assured victory, as we still had each other to deal with when everyone else was gone. I had lost the moment I met them and one of the members held a shotgun to my head. By allying myself with them, I’ll be able to surrender with my life, as opposed to just being off’d by someone who didn’t care. She, as well as some others, eclipsed my potential many fold, anyways.  
(I’ve forgotten some stuff here, so i’ll just put what I remember): Something about a cabin we hold up in. Something about a polaroid, being lost in time, and one more something about an antique radio station within the cabin.  
I ended up losing but living.  
A year passes.  
I walk the road up to the welcome gates to the tournament. My friends and family are with me, trying to convince me not to go. I had no reason to, I wasn’t going to win and no one was forcing me to enter. I felt I had a chance to win. I would do the same thing that got me far the first time, though I would be the leading party this time. All that was an excuse. For some inexplicable reason, I felt I had to. Maybe I had nothing left in my life, maybe I was already dead. Someone walks up to me, saying they were rooting for me the year before; they wish me luck. I bid them farewell and went through the many papapered process of entering.  
Again, I did not know anyone. I still needed to make a team. In the set up room, i’m surrounded by previous champions of tournaments of years gone by and smaller ones. I was allowed entry due to me surviving the most dangerous one. These people had won.  
I make conversation with a merman, attempting to sway him to helping me.


	15. Relaxing With Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 05/16/2018. I say my coworkers and friends, but that’s all dream logic as the people in the dream are people who I have never met.

I am at work. I dip the tip of a syringe into a packet and pull in a creamy substance. I stick the syringe into a tube and use it as a blowdart to hit my coworkers as I see them enter the room. This is to give them jobs.

After everyone is in the room, two of my friends enter the room form a metal door that leads outside. They say they will be going to an event north of a large city. I am surprised they would travel so far. I tell them I wish to meet them there.

I leave and jog down the road towards home. I’m halfway there before I begin to feel tired. Exuberant, I realize that I had gotten tired well before I succumbed to asthma. When I arrive home, I remark to some friends how happy I was about it. My “house”, though it’s a building I’ve never seen before in the waking world, is on the left of the street, the driveway separating it and the garage. The driveway winds behind the house and is used more as a patio than a parking area, though I still park there. The house is cast in blotched shadow from tall trees.

I had brought pizza. I try to keep it to myself, planning to eat it when me and another leave. People grab slices and start eating before I am able to snatch away what is left. I tell them I will be saving it for later. One of my friends opens the shutter door and enters the garage, which is used more as a workshop, to smoke.

Not far down the street is a gas station. Me and my friends push my car there to be worked on. Two large lug nuts are tightened by a machine on the underside of the front bumper.


	16. Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 05/27/2018. Before and after the time skip may seem as two dreams, but they were dreamed within the same night and during the same cycle of sleep.

I came around to the back of a building with broken storage crates and other old things pushed up against the buildings walls. In the back was a large bonfire with foldable chairs that were once in orderly lines only to be later taken by people to create many small intimate circles. I realized it was the place I worked. I saw people at tables with a banquet of food on each. People were standing around having a good time. I kept to the shadows in a corner between two crates, watching.

I ended up helping my coworkers who are working the event by handing out sticker rewards of large bubble letters to small children. Their goal with the letters was to spell an item in the prize pool to win it. A kid came up to me and asks for more letters, specifically the letter “a”. I handed him another letter, as I was running low on “a”s and needed to give out other letters. A coworker came and gives the kid a spare one of their letters. It had a little story on the page.

The kid quickly comes back to me saying that “ass” was on the page. The coworker, an old lady, took it back to look. Sure enough it was a story about someone being an ass. The stories were made by another coworker, so she rifled through the spares to find another one. All of them had different stories but all contain the word “ass”. I got fed up and realize that I wasn't even supposed to be working as I had quit a while ago. So I stormed off through the building and through the kitchen. Old people joyously greeted me while new employees puttered about.

*time skip*

I was pushing a platform truck up through a loading dock into a building. The building seemed to be a clothes shop and my objective now was to report that I had delivered the packages. The cart was an odd shape, almost triangular with the tip being far forward and had one wheel with two under the handlebar. It was oddly difficult to push, having a lot of resistance.

Upon coming to an elevator/office corner of the store, I realized I had come to the wrong building. I worked for USPS and this spot was for UPS. So I leave the building to return to my car, a minivan. a kid followed me, talking to me about things I can't remember. I tell him to go back, I had things to do. He refused, clinging to my leg. Omar comes up to us. He’s apparently working in the docking yard now. I ask him to bring the kid back so I could finish what I was doing. Kindly, he obliges and takes the kid back to, presumably, his mother. I feel bad for having Omar do it but also admire how kind he was.

I get in and shift my car to reverse down the hill. I fiddle with my phone to get directions. I push hard on the break but the car refuses to stop for longer than a second, stuttering down the hill. I back into an empty lane to right myself to continue down the street. I come to a strange traffic circle, still fiddling with my phone at this time, with two forms of exits. One is a more gradual merge into the circle, but has a blockade on it. The other meets the traffic circle at a right angle. I take the right angle one to get in then I attempt the gradual to exit. 

I was following behind another car and the gradual turn starts to close. A speed bump, though it was more like a wall, underneath me bubbles up as I tried to pass. I managed to pass as a flag came down over the rear of my car. I ride up to a traffic stop where officer Tingle was stopping and inspecting drivers. The cars had to stop due to an orange laser grid.

I pull down my window and politely ask him where the closest USPS store was. My car only stutters to a stop, before lurching forward to another stop and lurching again. He tries to tell me where I needed to goas my uncooperative car pulls me to my next right turn. He gets the information out just as I turn. I shout back to him apologizing for my misbehaving car.

Still unsure of where I was heading, I continue down the road for a block or two before seeing the USPS store on my right in a shopping strip. The buildings where brown brick with Kingdom Kastle being the eye catcher of the place. Kingdom Kastle was similar to Medieval Times. I pull in and park close to the mall that housed the USPS store. It was on a walkway on the perimeter inside the mall. I had to pass several, what I remember to be, rich-people stores. One of them was a fortune telling shop with their wall to the hallway removed, me seeing two people in Ghis talking to an old lady at a desk. The walls of the open stoor where dark, dark blue.

I enter the USPS store, and enter the elevator as requested of me when I had set out to deliver the packages. The elevator doesn't close. The elevator doesn’t itself move to another floor, but in fact brings the entire floor to another, larger, level. Two men in business suits greet me. I say I did what they asked me to do and that I wanted my family back.


	17. Fairy Cottage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 05/27/2018. None of the people or places within this dream have any real life analogies. Despite this, it somehow feels more like a standard fantasy you may find in any generic fantasy book.

I bring some people to a cottage in a forest. It's not very far said woods, and looks dilapidated from our distance to it. Up on a hill, behind us, is a school from which we came. We had heard rumors that the building belonged to a fairy, so we wanted to check it out. On our arrival, we discover that the cottage was not dilapidated but very nicely kept, with a flower garden in front and a shed to the right. The building contained a lone room, pink and white paint on its walls and heart shaped windows. It seemed something from a fairy tale, only kindling me and the small group’s interest. I wished for them not to go in, thinking of the owner. They push each other to get inside anyways and start to wreck the nice garden and some of the furnishings in the building.

To distance myself from the vandals, who I barely knew, I move to the left side of the building, beyond a wall of a wooden trellis draped purple flowers. I find, who I knew somehow, a girl who's defining feature was her black-opalescent hair that glittered. I call to them, Jakie. They were taken aback, surprised I recognized them. I must have realized then that the person was the fairy because I start overly apologizing for the others.

They lead me to another building we did not see before. It was a larger building beyond the cottage which refused to let me make out its features beyond many black windows on a gray wall. They left me sitting in an old playroom with the furniture covered in white cloth and dust. The only light was from the one, grime caked window. When I tried to leave, the fairy came to me in the form of a skunk, pinning me to the floor when I tried to get up.

I heard yelling outside, screaming. I knew the fairy was retaliating against the ignorant intruders. I got up, having been fed up with everything, and left to lead the people away from the cottage. They were hysterical, crying how people suddenly started to die. I shouted for them to follow me, that they would be safe if they did so. I lead them away, back up the hill, authority figures coming down to rescue them. While guiding people away, I broke away to head back to the fairy. Using my attentive invisibility, I slip past everyone to meet with the fairy. I tell them that their home is no longer safe. Now that they had killed the people, retribution will be rallied for. They, reluctantly, agree to come with me. I pull up a map (more like a psychic viewing of a map from my mind that I had obtained from ethereal means and shared with the fairy). Their forest was lush and secluded by the surrounding human developments. The north and west stretched on with forest. I wished to lead them in north east, but we would first need to cross the human’s territory.

I share my attentive invisibility with the fairy and we slip through the still panicking humans. We go through the fairy's hidden building, them retrieving some stuff while I waited in a diner.

The last thing I remember was being perched on the building behind the cottage, looking over a shrine of a tikis surrounded by fire. I was having a conversation with the fairy that I couldn't remember. The fairy is on my shoulder in the form of a rat.


	18. Bad Driver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 06/11/2018. Joe isn’t actually a bad driver. I believe this is a common dream where I’m afraid of other people driving, not trusting them as I would myself for keeping us safe.

Joe is driving us down a road. On either side are tall, thin trees so closely packed they make walls. The road becomes slick with the trees leaves that had been pulled off their branches from a recent rain. Joe is driving much faster than I am comfortable with. Localized puffs of fog become start to litter the road, then become unavoidable. The puffs of fog are so thick one couldn’t see into, or out of, them.

We drive down a hill and into a tunnel. The puffs of fog are in the tunnel as well, and even worse in their frequency and density. My father tells me to prepare for our emergence from the tunnel. When we emerge, the world shakes under us. We break through several absurdly thick puffs of fog and come to a beautiful scene of the forest with hues of pinks, oranges, and greens.

The puffs of fog persists. Joe begins to weave along the road, losing control of the car. The car drifts off the road while we drive through an unavoidable puff of fog; us only knowing this due to the car rumbling from the uneven terrain. I struggle with Joe, trying to take the wheel from him to get us back on the road.

Our struggle has us flying off the bridge. By some miracle, we land on an island in the shallow lake. Startled, I relinquish the wheel back to Joe who drives us gently from island to island. We slowly make our way back to the shore, to get back to the road. On our way, we come to a pagoda with a single, gentle pink and orange tree next to it and a picnic table housed within its shade.


	19. Vampires + Store

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another two short dreams dreamed during the night of 06/11/2018. Who knew vampires had dominion over skeletons. Or that you can have lunch while customers wait in line.

**Vampires**

I’m underneath a stone patio with a stone overhang held up by stone pillars. Everything is cold, from the air to the ground. I leave to the right side of the building and descend a flight of stone stairs. At the base is a catacomb of monster, mostly skeletons. I weave my way past them, trying to avoid them and their their grabby natures.

I resurface at the other end and end up where I began. I wait for daybreak. A group of five or six vampires come, escaping from the coming sun. I ask them if they could control the beasts below, which they are more than happy to do.

* * *

**Store**

I’m in a store selling drinks and my father is the cachear. I had gotten chinese food for the family, bringing the bag behind the counter and to a tiny bar. I start to take everything out. The line of customers is quite long. They are guided by movie theater ropes to the cashier, and i feel guilty for having my father eat instead of serving them.

There are young people who work at the stoor buzzing about with work. I get behind the register, wishing to help. I end up organizing glasses in a small alcove from the lacquered mahogany desk that surrounded the cashiers area. In the back there is one very old glass that’s taller than the others. I return it to the corner where I had found it.


	20. Grocery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final dream dreamed on 06/11/2018. A very mundane dream about rude people in a grocery store and losing my car.

I’m in a grocery store, checking items off my list as I find them. I’m almost done, looking at a wall of drinks by the chasheir isles. A woman in a green beanie is beside me wonders aloud where the grape soda was. I point it out, and she thanks me.

As I’m waiting in line in the single of the three chacheir lines that was open, the person in front of me has problems. They call for the manager. The woman in the green beanie behind me becomes visibly agitated. To not keep us waiting, the cacheir calls me up to check me out while they wait for the manager to come to help. I push my cart by the seething lady and wait while the cashier scans my items. I had looped back through the store a second time as I had realized I had forgotten items after I had checked out. So I give him my previous receipt so I would not have to pay for those items a second time. I’m unsure as to why I had forgotten the items.

As the cashier scans the items, I take them and put them into my basket. Some of the items aren’t the exact brand that the list asked for. I said nothing about it as the cashier seemed so apathetic about his job. I realized I missed something again. I leave for a moment to grab some grape jelly that is in a cold section near the cashier.

After everything is done, I leave the store, emerging to a stripmall. The sky is black and amber glowing lights illuminate the concrete sidewalk. In front of the storeface was a thin parking lot that lead up to a man made cliff with more parking lot on the top. The cliff towered over the parking lot with a slight overhang. There were stairs and ramps on either end and grass all around the edges of both the upper and lower lots.

I can not remember where I parked my car. I take out my electric car key and press the alert button to find it through sound. Several cars alarms go off and silence when I press the button again. With a sigh, I go to inspect each of the cars that beeped to find which one was mine. The wild goose chase leads me to the upper lot, back down to the lower lot, and back up while carrying my groceries the entire time. At one point, one of the cars which beeped had people at it. I felt bad that they had no idea what was happening.

Hooking back to the grocery store, I meet with the same agitated lady who had asked for the manager. When I greet her, she realizes she forgot her drink and returns to the store. I continue the search for my car.

From the upper level, I lower myself off the cliffside to get a better look at the parking lot below without having to actually go down to the lower lot. I keep my basket in one hand and hold on with the other. None of the cars remaining were mine. I hoisted the basket back up onto the ledge, then myself.


	21. Voyage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 06/16/2018. Why worry about missing a ship when there’s a party going on?

I’m in the back of a minivan, riding down a road curving through the woods. The fact that no one was driving frightened me. My father appears in the driver's seat. I clamber over the seats to sit in the passenger's seat next to him. We’re then driving over a long bay bridge where dream logic tells me it leads to a city in the mountains.

We are hailed to stop at a toll booth, the man there telling us to pull over so they can figure something out. We don’t stop and, in fact, drive right through without paying or being given a ticket. After we enter the city past open iron gates under brick arches, we pull over. We wonder how we’re going to get to a place called “Oceanus”, father unsure of which road to take. I point to a road that bears to the left, asking if that was it. The car won’t start up, forcing us to have to make it the rest of the way on foot.

My father has the appearance of someone else, someone young, scrawny, and with straight hair down his neck. He tells me to follow him inside a parking garage full of people. The parking garage is cast in dim blue from lights set up for and event. Neither of us know what the event is celebrating, but there are people drinking, stands selling goods, arcade cabinets, amusement games such as skiiball or arcade hoops cabinets everywhere. My ‘father’ guides me through the dense crowd of fun having people. We descend a crowded flight of stairs and are stopped at the bottom by a person who had a lot of nonsense to tell us about. My father pushes past the jabbering mand and hurries along, me then having trouble keeping up with him. He takes two steps at a time down an empty yellow escalator, the stairs next to it overcrowded. To catch up to him, I jump down the final steps. I’m not the only one endangering myself as there are other people jumping off railings and generally disregarding any safety guidelines. 

We exit the garage and jog up to a cruise ship. My father hands our tickets to a tall man in a black suit. The sun is bright and warm; I feel bad for the man having to wear that suit. He informs us that we had arrived too late. We see the ship propelled out of the harbor, with many on board waving farewells to people still on the shore. I briefly imagine what it would be like if we were on the ship, with endless ocean surrounding us.

Both me and my father get really bummed out. I ask the man in the suit if we could board the next ship. He says the next one won’t set sail for some time. I tell my dad that there could be other stuff we could do while we’re in the city. That we were going to travel on a cruise ship was a big surprise to me, so I got over the shock of missing it quickly. My father was still bummed about the situation.


	22. Pretentious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 06/16/2018. Matrix is only the name of the movie. Seems more to be an art piece than a multi-million dollar box office hit.

I am with someone, trying to prove I’m cool by alliterating all my words to start with the letter “K”. On the final word, I struggle to find one that would fit the sentence; I can only think of words that have the “K” sound but start with “C” in their spelling. I come up with the word “Karing”. Unsure if it was a real word, I look it up on Google. We find that is a real word with a meaning that was a jumbled mess I was incapable of reading. I have the person I’m with read it for me, which they were able to do without trouble. Apparently, it was a word from the Matrix movie.

I get a vision of me watching the Matrix. There’s a woman in heavy makeup and dressed in an elaborate costume. She’s dancing in a blue room with close up shots of her face. The camera switches to shots of people’s legs on the floor. More people add their legs to the mass, covering each other’s bodies so only the legs were visible. They make a human sculpture, but the camera’s angle only allows the viewer to see a small part of it. More and more people in different costumes pile on, the camera switching to each new person that enters. After the last person enters the pile, the camera zooms out to show that the sculpture of oiled bodies was of a whale. The person I had been watching the video with, the same one from the beginning, makes a comment before the whale is revealed. They complain about how the meaning behind the movie was made too obvious because of the revelation of the whale, how that took a bit away from the movie.


	23. Job + Rave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 07/02/2018. Finding a job his hard, harder when your previous employer doesn’t remember you. Sometimes Raves are a lot less than what they’re supposed to be as well.

**Job**

I’m stranded in an important city without a ride. I wonder if I’m unable to return home, or unwilling. I wander down an alleyway of brown concrete. It dips below the road level and leads to a dark green door. I emerge on a terrace on the other side of the building. I’m wearing a black and pink kimono while awkwardly holding a cane at an angle so it would not touch the ground. Among the older people who were sitting underneath umbrellas at metal and wired tables. I knew my husband had worked here before and I intended to use his affiliate status to find a position.

Later, I’m talking with the woman who I had worked with years ago. We’re inside the building standing in a room with empty tables. With the older woman are three younger girls who seemed new to the craft, each having their own color kimono. I was trying to explain to them how I had been apart of their group before, the woman taking time to remember who I was.

* * *

 

**Rave**

I’m by a waterside shed next to a dam. The full moon is overhead and fireflies twinkle in the reeds. I ask the woman there, if she could take me up to the rave on the top of the hill. A path lines the dam up to a concrete fortress angrily defying the darkness with neon lights. The woman agrees, saying I can take whatever gear I needed. There are glow sticks dumped on a table. Before I make a decision of what to take, the woman starts up the path. I grab a handful of glow sticks and head up after her.

We enter a large open room with two rows of booth tables set up down the center. The whole room thumps with the music played by a DJ playing in the back. My guide breaks off when she finds a friend of hers. She and her friend take the remaining two seats of a booth nearby.

I follow a guy who seemed just as lost as I felt. We hook around the bottom of the booth line. The guy squeezes into a booth that’s overcrowded with people, some having to stand up because there was no room to sit. They are all laughing and talking with one another. I head to the back wall to lean against the wall’s padding. I scan the scene, taking in who was there and what everyone was doing.

I’m not the only one who had made the back wall their place to hang out. The people there were generally more subdued than the people dancing by the DJ or howling in the booths. They did still talk to each other, however. A person walks up next to me and I try to spark a conversation. They don’t seem to hear me over the din of music. They soon leave.


	24. Exploration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 08/??/2018. This is a dream where I don’t have a presence within it, but watch the characters do their own thing.

A dragon of ashen scales left a group of humans. The gathering of obscured faces bade the dragon farewell from the marble floor they pranced upon. Not everyone knew the dragon. Those who did wished it well with heaviness in their hearts.

The dragon swooped down and entered a snow topped manor. The cold violet of twilight could not overcome the interior bonfire’s orange warmth. Just outside the entrance, bushes were draped with fairy lights that glittered from within icicles. The dragon greeted the creature of the manor on its porch, refusing to enter when offered. They exchange words befit those who are close before the dragon flew away.

The dragon had its final stop in a dense forest, to say its final farewell to the she-yeti witch. The witch asked where it planned on going. The dragon said that it will travel far into the Unknown, an endless expanse of forested tundra to the north-west of the land. The witch advised the dragon to stay, though it would not stop it from leaving. The dragon flew off to traverse the Unknown.

The Unknown bit with colder winds than the harshest of blizzards of his home. The dragon had to land to keep its wings from freezing. It came across a brood of eggs which hatched at its presence. Fox-like creatures emerged from their shells and scampered about. Some ran to hide and others ran to run. The ones who hid not hide from the dragon, but from others of their brood who attempted to find them. There was no sign of a mother. They must not have had many creatures as a dragon in the area to call for such a lack of fear by these hatchlings. One of the fox-like creatures took a liking to the dragon, following it through the forest of frozen plants away from its boord. Weak was the best description of the fox-creature. It had trouble keeping pace with its new friend. The dragon took pity and decided to carry it.


	25. Seaside Event

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 08/??/2018. The whale-seals started out as whales while in the water, then were seals when they were on land.

I made my way through the city streets to a seaside, multistoried building. The ocean water reflected the moon as a sliver, disturbed by many breaching whale-seals. Each time they would emerge from the water, they were closer to the shore. I knew there was something wrong with them, holograms maybe? Everyone else on the shore and looking out from the building stood in awe of the spectacle. One of the whale-seals crawl onto the shore, it ushered into the building by people in suits. I noted the boats that drifted not too far from where the whale-seals first appeared. The boats were barely perceptible, none having lights.

The people on the sandy shore funneled inside, dragging me along their current. They dispersed through the empty rooms and hallways, awaiting the next stage to the event. The whale-seal and its small entourage were ushered to a small hallway, that terminated at a stairwell, away from everyone else. Bodyguards stationed at the end of the hallway and in the stairwell kept anyone from so much as viewing the whale-seal.

I wanted to meet the whale-seal to understand what about them put me off so. I attempted to slip past one of the guards, they station themselves firmly in my path. My face melts and contorts into something so terrifying that I leave the bodyguard curled and shivering. I walk up to and past the whale-seal and its entourage of three or four humans. It seemed corporeal, though I still had my suspicions. I also wondered about its connection with the dark ships.

I continued down the stairwell and emerged to an empty room with one person getting something from one of the vending machines.


	26. Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 08/??/2018. How is one supposed to beat a self-cloning, shapeshifting, doppelganger? The answer might surprise you.

My family had been replaced with “cloning doppelgangers”. I learned this from the insect inside a glass bottle that was inside a glass bottle I had found in our front yard. The insect had a distinctly human face. It warned me of a doppelganger that had been slowly taking the lives of people in the area. It did not take long for me to discover that it hat assumed all members of my household. I did not know what had happened to the originals. I picked up the bottle, grow and unfurl wings from my shoulder blades, and flew away.

The inner bottle was filled with a clear liquid that the bug swam around in. the bottles don’t have lids or corks; I tried to keep the liquid from spilling as I hastily flew away. The doppelganger gives chase, taunting us while also pleading for us to slow down or otherwise let it catch up to us. I felt compelled to do as it said. The insect in the bottle told me not to listen. It told me of how doppelganger was trying to hypnotize me and to not let it do so. It has to keep telling me this, for I forget its warnings just after they are said.

We flew over fenlands and bayside forests and homes, over as many bodies of water as possible as it seemed to slow the doppelganger down. Never too far behind, the doppelganger morphed into many things, never ceasing to try and coax us into giving in. The people and creatures it changed to are ones that would make the select terrain its traveling on easier to maneuver over, such as a wolf in the woods or a human to commandeer a nearby jet-ski.

As the chase progressed, I spilled more and more of the insects liquid until there is little left. I pulled out a plastic bottle of water and poured the liquid into the insect’s bottle until it was full, then drink the rest that was in the plastic. As I poured the water, I realized that it was the doppelgangers weakness. It was why it was slow to cross bodies of water. It was why the insect was submerged, and why the doppelganger could not hypnotise the insect as it could me. The insect affirmed my conclusion.


	27. Monster Hunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 09/01/2018. The “ice wall” and “monster hunting” have two, likely, obvious influences. However, half way through it switches to random dream stuff. Then the end it uses ideas and words from a conworld I use often.

I stood atop an enormous wall of ice. After having a brief conversation with someone, I traveled eastward towards the sea. The wall sloped down before terminating at the sea’s shore. Traveling south from there, I strode up to a castle. The castle of umber stone was in ruins, destroyed by something I had known once but no longer.

The lords, ladies, knights, and peasantry who had once lived within the now crumbling walls I knew had either died during the disaster or had left for more fertile lands. To my astonishment, I found around thirty children and an elderly nurse living in the wreckage. I strike a conversation with the wizened woman, learning that she had been taking care of these orphaned children for years. She also told me of a monsterous she-wolf who would come and take a child every full moon.

Interrupting our conversation, the children begged me to leave the monster alone. They loved the monster, and knew about their fate. To them, the she-wolf had been kind. They willingly and gladly went with the monster, never to return. I knew the monster was treating them as cattle. I picked up my sword to hunt the monster, to kill it and liberate these children.

I found the she-wolf in a glade outside the ruins. I charged at it on sight, sword in hand, screaming with rage. A pack of wolves were with the humanoid monster. They backed away as their alpha monster told them to not interfere. It defended itself from my onslaught, trying to tell me something with a hideous voice. I could only hear my own anger. With a deft, two handed swing, the beast chests spurted blood as it collapsed to my feet. I asked it if it regretted what it had done to the children, as though I thought it could be remorseful. I slide my sword into its throat before it could speak.

Another monster, lumbering, baleful, and terrifying ambushed me and pins me to the ground with two trunks-like for arms. From its putrid and drooling maw protruded one long, serrated and jagged tooth with runes carved into it. With great effort, I caught the tooth and held it back from impaling me. I struggled with the muscled beast, slowly losing ground as the tooth was pushed closer to my face. The she-wolf got up, groggily, and lunged at the monster. She cleaved the beast’s head from its body.

The she-wolf stood on my sword as I reached for it. It told me that it meant no harm. I pondered how it could possibly be alive. It must have been stronger than I realized, able to easily kill me if it wanted to. It continued; the wolves that it traveled with were not true wolves, but the children it had taken away. The children in the ruined castle were dying of a strange disease, she was providing them the only mercy she knew how to. The deathbound children would be given to the she-wolf by the caretaker upon the she-wolf's request. She would then turn the children into her thralls, in an effort to keep them alive.

She then told me of how she was not always a monster. She was once engaged to the boy king of Anyuh Nepechidee, decades ago. She was cursed, and was exiled to this forest. She did not know how long she had been in this state, time becoming meaningless to her after the first few years.


	28. Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 10/14/2018. Another dream that takes place wholly in the conworld. I changed the sudden shift from beachside to pool into just having the whole thing take place at an indoor lake for consistency's sake.

A wyvern lazed on a beach, buried lightly under the sun warmed sand. The sounds of families enjoying the day were all around. Adults chatted with small pleasantries while children screamed with joy and kicked up sand behind them as they played. The wyvern hoped the kids would not trample over it in their frolocing, more so over its wings. Some of those kids that were playing, they were the wyverns charge. Their parents had left them with the wyvern, putting their young in the wyvern’s care during summer days so they would have some reprieve. The tide of the manufactured lake had grown since the children had buried their temporary guardian, the salted water lapped gently over its snout. The wyvern wasn’t too worried, one of the other temporary guardians were looking over the children.

The wyvern opened its eyes. The water, it was brown, it should not have been. It lifted itself from the sands embrace, some grains refusing to let go. It inspected the water, which was brownish black with a film grid of black. The wyvern wanders over to a door, asking one of the staff of the indoor lake if this was normal. The large birds that were the staff told the wyvern that the film on the water was used to clean it.

One of the children the wyvern was in charge of bounced up to it. The child told the wyvern and the staff that one of the other temporary guardians had been playing a game with them. The game was to see who can hold their breath the longest underwater, while having a tea party with imaginary cups. The counselor still had not resurfaced.

The wyvern dove into the pool, snaking its way through the water. It spotted the fellow guardian who laid motionless on the lake’s bed. The wyvern wrapped its wings around the human then carried them back to the surface. It laid its fellow on the shore, demanding that someone their size would resuscitate them. The wyvern was worried it would crush them if it tried to do so.

With the fellow guardian receiving aid from one of the staff, the wyvern thought. The fellow guardian could not have forgotten to come up. And, while the wyvern was under the water, it felt something weighing, pulling, it down. The fellow guardian must not have forgotten to come up, but have been pulled under.

The wyvern left the worried children and the coughing fellow guardian to confront the two bird staff that still hung by the door. It demanded that they tell it why this had happened. They said that they did not know anything about it, their faces confused. The wyvern knows that they were lying, that they knew about the creature that lived in their lake. The likely culprit to the near drowning was a kind of insect. The insects dragged creatures under to then encase them in wet silk. All that would remain of the creature would be hard silk statues. These statues would be taken by the insects to decorate their mating nest in a wooded area.

The staff agree to, and did, drain the lake. The sand at the bottom is brushed away to reveal panels. A woman and her child tried entering the building. The wyvern turned them away, telling them there had been an incident. These panels are then pulled aside, revealing the basement storage area.

As the insect prefers darkness, the lights are cut. The insect beings to chirp and click in the darkness of the storage area. The wyvern steels itself, knowing that if it went down there it may not come back. And what of the children it was in charge of, the fellow guardian was in no condition to protect them if anything were to happen. The staff shined a light in the murk. The insects would dart away from the light when it caught them; they were too hard to follow with the light.

One of the insects scuttered up out of the storage area. The wyvern dove after it, chasing it as it scurried along the wall of the large room. The insect was large, long, and had many legs. The wyvern attempts to kill the insect by crushing it with its talons. The insect avoids the attempts and crawls onto the wyverns wing. The wyvern slaps its wing to the wall, crushing the insect and hurting itself.


	29. Wizards & Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 10/15/2018. This was two dreams dreamed during the same night. When I pulled my head out of the machine in the first dream, I did the same thing in real life, waking me up. Then I went back to sleep and had the second dream.

A young woman waited with a pinch of apprehension while two of her superiors activated a device of two metallic prongs. The prongs sparked, blue electricity reluctantly coming out to the command. The prongs no longer arched with electricity when they settled into a low hum, ready for when they were needed. She knew what the prongs were used for, to create a magic dust. The young woman was instructed to fill a small empty vial with the magical dust. With bare hands, she held the glass in the field of azure material just below the presently inactive prongs. The prongs arched and the sparks generated from the azure electricity filled the vial, and coated her hands, within a blink of an eye. She was then ordered to bring the vial to one of the monastery’s most aged members.

The young woman ascended, descended, and turned down many corridors until she reached her destination. The dozen or so headstones were housed in an alcove overlooking the tops of clouds being pierced by mountain peaks. She opened an urn that sat at the base of one of the larger headstones. She tipped the azure vial and watched as the dust mixed itself into the ashes. The ashes sparkled azure. The spirit of the urn appeared over the headstone, sparkling in the same hue and shining with the same consistency as the dust. The spirit gave a nod of approval. The young woman's heart swelled at the sight of one who had died for such a just cause acknowledging a [new person] such as herself.

She rejoined her superiors in the hall which housed the two-pronged device among a myriad of other devices, study desks, and books. Her next task was to infuse several inkwells with the dust. She does so. After the first few, she became distracted. The dust did not settle and evaporates. To avoid a lesson that would have needed to be taught to her again, she concentrated on the task and filled the vial up before putting a stopper in it.

Her mind drifted once more. This time, she listened in on a whispered conversation two of her superiors were having across the open room. They talked about putting their heads under a device to try and see “something”. Their voices hushed and she did not hear what that “something” had been. She decided that they must have been talking about the device she’s using. She had been told that the device was dangerous, but maybe that was to prevent new blood such as herself from using it inappropriately. She takes the still empty inkwell out of the device and stuck her head in place of it.

A melody composed itself for her. There was not enough time to fully or properly comprehend its alluring tones before someone yanked her by her hair out of the device. She described to her superiors the melody she heard, how she wished greatly to hear it again. With what thin shreds of memory she had of the melody, she attempted to replicate it through humming. One of her superior’s eyes grew alight as they told the others in a hushed and reverent voice of their recognition of the melody. The young woman listened and learned of how ancient the melody’s origins were before the gathered group of her superiors shut her off from their whispers. With a nod shared between the members of the private circle, they re-include the young woman to their conversation. They ask her if she had seen a tower. She had not. She saw what was real and before her presently before being utterly distracted by the enchanting melody.

They wished to see if the young woman would be able to see anything. She too wished to see this mysterious tower. With their wary approval, some disagreeing with the verdict, she rested her head under the device.

The feelings that grew fractal was more surreal than the first time. Her thoughts became under a kind of pressure. She felt, saw it become, that her mind was not her own. It was being pushed somewhere else, somewhere deep inside of her. She then saw the tower, piercing the heavens. A pillar of black roots wrapped around an emerald and glowing core that was the centerpiece to lush greens, verdant forests, and distant mountains. The tower became smaller, less immaculate. The trees were fewer and the mountains less mighty. The tower was broken, the grass sickly brown in patches and the trees gone. The emerald core was then dull and the land smothered in twilight. The tower was gone. All around was red waste under a cruel yet absent sun.

Somewhere, there was a thought. Her distant self knew that if she were to continue, she would lose herself forever. She fought against the overwhelming pressure with every fiber of her being. She felt herself come into focus, pulling her head out of the device. As she releases herself from the azure hold, she hears: _End the game and see._

* * *

A young man ascended a staircase and found his underclassmen colleagues playing with tarot cards in an attempt to grant themselves small wishes. He yelled at them. The words that left him were entire strings of thoughts mashed into single incoherent and seemingly unconnected dribble. He could not convey to them the dangers their play posed, so he decided to communicate with action in stead.

He snatched the cards from the table and went to place them on the Wizard’s desk. The desk nestled itself in the wall at the other side of the open room. He strode past the many plastic tables and chars that littered the room. He took pause at the Wizard’s fine wood desk, ignoring the cries that came from behind him. He should keep the cards, the ones who whined behind him might just take them again if he were to leave them there. After wrapping the cards delicately in a white cloth and tying the bundle a gold string, he stuffed the problem in his pocket.

He would explain to the underclassmen about his choice actions later, or will have the wizard explain their errors. First, he would have to make sure his suspicions hadn’t come true. He looked out a window to the courtyard below. Many people were walking about the campus, enjoying the sunny day. He saw his fears justified. A long bundle of tied straw grew from the stone wall like a tumor. The hand of the palm tree-like appendage swished above the heads of students, like a snake attempting to get the scent of its prey. A few times the hand made of straw closed in a failed attempt to grab someone. The young man knew this was a demon, one of possibly multiple. No one in the crowds showed any signs of being able to see the demon, that only made it more dangerous.

He leapt from an open window, landing with a roll on the balcony one floor below. After lowering himself to hang from the balcony, he swung then jumped then grabbed one of the decorative stalactites. After his feet landed on the ground, he darted for the demon. His run slowed to a jog as he realized the growth of straw was no where to be seen. He noticed a small group huddling in obvious fear around the corner from where the demon was. The young man goes up to them and asked what had happened. They tell him that a “freaky thing” grabbed their friend and ran off. The spokeswoman of the group pointed to a road of sand across the asphalt street. The man sprinted after his lead, uncaring of the traffic jam he probably had just caused.

The road of sand lead to a construction site along the few remaining dunes. No one was around. The construction project was likely one where people had planned to execute it sometime in the future and left their tools in place for when that day would finally come. There, he spotted the demon. It had shape-shifted into an innocent looking pug. The pug dove into a small concrete tube that leaked with green water. The man would not fit in the tube, no matter which form. So he ran along the top, determined to catch the demon pug when it emerged from the other end. Before reaching the other end, he thought of how stupid he was being. He turned around and saw the pug already running the way they had come. As he passed the beginning of the tube, he knocked a tire to block it. He did not want to be duped more than once.

With a gust of wind that rolled in from the ocean behind him, he assumed his true and demonic shape of a gargoyle and soared through the air. He barreled for the pug who headed up the steps to the primary entrance of the college; the pug was not nearly fast enough to get inside. The man landed on the pug with great force, sending a small shock-wave of dust and sand out from them. The demon writhed, curse, and pleaded from under his stony claws and talons. The demon shifted to its true and demonic shape: a ghastly white hand with one large red eye on its back, blackened and pointed finger tips, and maroon varicose veins. The man hadn’t the grip he wanted on the creature, and could feel it slowly worming its way from his hold. He grabbed one of the shiny fingers and bent it back until there was a snap and the finger was touching the eye. The man taunts his prey “you think I’m bad, wait until the Wizard gets a hold of you.”

The man jumped onto the roof with the limp demon held in one hand. He resumed his human disguise and surveyed the landscape around him. He spotted several black horses with red cloth tied around their ankles playing soccer wit children in the distance. Beyond that, in the city proper, a gargantuan lava demon thrashed and raged. Police lights shifted red and blue around the creature. The man was unsure of what mere humans could do to something they couldn’t even see. They would need the Wizard’s help.

The once lively campus below was then still and less populated. With attentions directed elsewhere, the man hoped from the roof he was on to the one where his underclassmen colleagues had released these demons with their careless use of wish granting. He entered the room to find those at fault, the Wizard, and some of the mans immediate colleges having a discussions with grim expressions.

The man learns that some of his colleges had dealt with demons of their own. There had been another fire demon with blue flames running for office between worlds. The professor, the Wizard, had been trapped in its cauldron. It was the man’s colleges that were able to save the day.


	30. End of the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 11/??/2018. This dream escalated quickly. It goes from a nice bike ride with friends to the end of the world and beyond without taking a breath.

Two of my friends and I were racing to the center of a city on bikes, all of us starting from different points around the city. The brown multi-storied buildings were primarily of the Tudor style, a few modern sensibilities accented the buildings such as shingled roofs and windows on the lower levels protected with iron bars. Other than the three of us, the city was empty.

I had been the last one to arrive at the goal, making me the last to have my wish granted by Santa. The building, that Santa had propped their tent on the lawn of, towered over us with white columns and cold trim. It was great in width, pushing all the other buildings, which were of similar heights, away with a well kept green. In front of the dwarfed tent building of white that housed myriad musical instruments and mixing tables floated the wishing fairy (previously Santa). Her violet hair floated freely as if in water. She talked with one of my friends, the one who was second to arrive. The first to arrive had already received their wish and was kept as a liquid in a tall-necked, deep-blue vase.

I had already known this was to be our fate when our wishes were granted. It had happened to me the previous time I had made a wish. That time, I was unaware of the process and was shocked to find myself melted into a liquid and kept in a bottle. I watched as the universe around me slowly folded in on its self, molding itself to where my wish was the reality. For those around me, this was instantaneous; for me, I had to wait for the eternity to end and circle back to the point where I had made my wish.

When my second friend wash melted into eternal liquid, I stepped up to make my wish. I joked with the fairy of how we had done this dance before. I told her how I wanted a different wish, this time. Before I was able to speak my wish, and after I had made the off comment, angels in sharp suits came into existence, grabbed me, and flew me away by my shoulders. They were concerned with the universe having already reset. They took me to the foyer of a drab office building, the whole place in a tumolt.

Something evil had been re-born because of my wish, I had overheard. Normally, they would have known each and every time the universe looped, and kept that evil under their watchful eyes and in their made prison. My wish, they did not know about. The evil being, called Noah by the angels, had been able to escape its imprisonment. During the single point in time, the gap between where the previous universe ended and the wish universe began, it was able to escape its bonds with its will of wrath to give itself a rebirth.

The other side of the foyer, next to the hallway of office rooms, faded away to reveal a dirt path that wound through a neatly kept wooded area. On the path trod an adult male holding tightly to a baby wrapped in a serene white blanket. The angels cross the threshold, frighting the man and poised to kill the infant. My sense of morality was thrown into conflict. I did not want to see a baby die, but I knew that if it is true evil it must. I am unable to decide its fate.


	31. The Thief That Rescues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 12/??/2018. I normally don’t include lapses in my dreams, but I feel what happened before the lapse gives more weight to the narrative of the dream. Also, a reason for the use of “Theif” in the title.

I dashed across the city’s light-tan, ivy-laced stone road. I ran from a baleful group who wanted me dead. Me and my group had stolen something from them. During my escape, I passed someone I knew. They were fending off boiling shadows in a pit of a stone courtyard. I wanted to stop and help her but I had my own pursuers to deal with. I grab the attention of a few who were attacking her to have them chase me instead.

There was a skip in my perspective of the dream.

I still fled from the shadows, then with a child on my back. I had scooped up the child who would have otherwise fallen prey to the shadows that stalked the now empty streets behind us. We had made it out of the city and up to a barn which perched itself to overlook its tilled land and the tan city in the distance. With the child clinging tightly to my back, we squeezed trough a rectangular hole in the barn’s broad side. The hole leads into one of the empty stables of the barn. On the opposite side of the stable stood a wall where one should not have been, the same wall with a rectangular hole as the one we had just entered. I knew that the wall with the hole would not have been there if we had entered the barn by conventional means. The space between the hole we entered and the hole that waited ahead was strange. Colors shifted blue and the whole world felt bubbly. Not wanting to let our pursuers take the child, I fly through the next hole.

When we emerged from the other side of the second hole, we were no longer in the barn. We flowed from a white buss in a crowd of people wearing dark t-shirts that bore sharp names. I realized we had somehow come to a concert, the people around us having traveled who knows how far to be there. I was unsure if the pursuers were able to follow us. I had to keep the child safe. I waded in the crowd, funneled along with them in to a building. Inside, the people dispersed into the open area before disappearing into different rooms, which held attractions and acts. The open room collected the scents of sweat, food, and more sweat, as well as having the din of several bands practicing on several stages.

I turn around. The mass of people suddenly became a trickle of workers cleaning up litter and taking down the stages. I turn again to see if the whole area was like this. The stages became restaurants and the people around were dressed in fine clothes for dining. The smell of expensive grilled, blanched, and sauteed food filled was then the norm.

With the child still holstered on my back, I vacated the building before any more lapses in time could occur. We find ourselves exiting onto a road that ran parallel to a beach. We traveled along the road while I tried to figure out where we were and what to do next.


	32. Lost Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 12/??/2018. This dream is underlined with the idea that there is a war going on. The silence of the town was due to that area being affected heavily by the war, and had yet to bounce back. And it is the side I fought for, to quash the insurgence, that ended up winning.

On a large black stone which rose from the low tide, a friend and I searched the tidal pools. We found something important then hurried back to the town not too far away. We hopped over tide pools teeming with life, not wanting to take the extra time to walk around them. We passed over the main street on the north side of the town then down a short road before being ushered in the modest mansion we had accommodated as our hold out. Our detail had secured this town not to long ago.

My friend and I parted; he headed up stairs to share what he had found with the general, and I to the basement. One of my superiors led me to a room which one of my rank is not normally allowed access. We talked for a bit before I am told to check upstairs. As I crossed the main room of the basement, with stairs opposite, I caught movement in the corner of my eye. I’m quick enough to have seen someone dive into a bush outside the window to my left. I shouted “alarm” before I realized that I was shouting. Knowing I was doing right, I shouted louder, as loud as I could manage.

It did not take long for the first shots to ring out. I did not know if they were ours or the enemies. I flew up the stairs, forgetting to grab my weapon.

I found myself in close quarters with one of the enemy, too close for either of us to take an aimed shot. I threw them off the railing to the first floor of the foyer below. They got up then rushed back up the stairs to try and grab their weapon that was then on the floor. I would grab them again and throw them over the railing, expecting them to be injured and unwilling to come back up. I taunted them, yelling that I could continue all day. To giants of men grabbed my adversary, one holding each leg in their sausage sized fingers. I heard a crunch as the two men folded my adversaries legs upwards. I became nauseous.

Time skip

While the war was not over, I had been granted leave for a short while and managed to catch one of my friends’ weddings. I left to take a call while everyone else made merriment and drank champagne at white linen tables.

I blinked.

I found myself in an unknown place of strange twilight. I’m told by an ambient voice that I must reach the portal before it closed, if I wanted to go home. I ran, jumping over hurdles and climbing steep walls in the direction the voice told me. I was too slow and the portal closed before I had covered half the distance.

A figure which I could neither then nor after have made out the distinct features of offered me their hand. They told me I needed to train, and that they would help me do so. I accept. They then whisked me away where my memories could never be made. The next thing I knew I was running the gauntlet again. That time I had been faster, more agile, capable of gliding past any and all of the obstacles. I make it to the end and leapt into the portal.

I opened my eyes to find I was back where I was before, in the same clothes too. The place was the same, but the time was not. In place of the summer wedding was silence and snow. A gas station had spawned on the side of the road and the trees around the park were bare and broken. I reached for my phone, finding it not to be in my pocket. I look around my feet, hoping I had only just dropped it when I came back. My phone was against the shed, peeking out from underneath the slightly melted snow. I picked it up, brushed off a film of grime, and pressed the power button. It had been turned off at some point, and booted with its companies logo.

My panic subsided when my friend picked up on the other end. Before I could have had a chance at conversation, they told me that they are no longer interested and hung up.

I walked to the gas station, to see if I could find someone to help me. The absurd absence of sound broke when I heard someone wailing from inside the gas station. Their voice brought about memories I could not place. I thrust open the door to find a small child curled in the corner. The child screamed at the sight of me. I pick up the child, holding them close and stroking their back while they screamed painfully in my ear. Their screams turned to sobs before, blessedly, they ran out of energy.

I asked her where their family was, though I wanted to ask where anyone was. When the child spoke, I realized where I had heard their voice from. It was my friend who had gotten married; it was her voice that I thought I had heard. The child tells me which way to take them to get home. They held tightly to -and burying their tears in- my neck. While we walked, I became more concerned with the absence of any noise or persons. And from that, why no one had come to this little girl’s aid when she was wailing so audibly.

After a long while of walking in silence and solitude, we arrived at a waterfront cabin. The girl led me inside, down a hallway with its floral wallpaper peeling. We turned into a room and are greeted with tears of joy. The child and her mother embraced. It took a minute of sweet words shared from parent to child for my friend to come back down to reality. When she finally saw me, her eyes turned from joy to subdued rage. She growled at me of how upset she had been for my sudden disappearance. After her ruined wedding, her life spiraled out of control as if prompted by it.

Rather than vocally telling me of all that had happened over the past few years, she took out an old VHS tape. She told me her monsterous children had made it for her and many others; It was a documentary of sorts. Soon after my disappearance, she bore dozens of gray wolf-tadpole like creatures, fathered by the one whom she had married. Soon thereafter, her husband had left her and the newborn monsters, his last words telling her he had never loved her. Then her children, who she loved despite their nature, were taken away from her and put to be slave workers in a sort of banking system. And while her children toiled away, they made this documentary of her, to curse her as they hated their existence and blamed her.

Before the movie could conclude, her current husband burst through the door in a drunken rage. Someone was coming, and he needed to make sure she was safe. He gave me a look saying “don’t  you dare try anything”. He did not stay long, leaving to stalk the perimeter of the cabin and the roof. My friend continued the movie.

After the film had finished, I left my friend and her daughter to see to a commotion outside. The husband shouted demands at a rowing boat on the water for the people aboard to leave. The one’s he yelled at had come to collect on gambling he had not paid back. Aboard the boat were several men; or rather, indiscript creatures. At the husbands prompting, I rushed inside and took my friend and her daughter swiftly away. I let go of their hands on the side of a highway the child and I had crossed while getting to the cabin. The highway bore through a dense forest and had only a single car passed us. I told them to wait for me there, that I would come back for them with her husband safe. I swiftly return to the cabin to rescue the husband.

After I had left my friend and her daughter, they are picked up by someone they knew in a car. I am unaware of this, however.

Having arrived back at the cabin, I am greeted with three of the indistinct creatures. Their feet did not touch the ground and a pressure that had me suddenly sleepy plagues their proximity. I mocked them, telling them their tricks will not work on me. A jellyfish from atop one of their heads flew towards me. It attached itself to my head, having the fatiguing affect amplified. I continued to resist. They did not engage in a fight, but flee. They had distracted me well enough, and I allowed one in the boat to sail away with my friend’s husband.


	33. Pirate Continuation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 12/??/2018. “Continuation” used due to this dream, at least as far as the dream was concerned, was a continuation of another dream. I can’t seem to recall which one however, and I seemed to have neglected to write it down.

I am riding in a truck with a few others, with a trailer behind us that carries our columbian-era ship. We planned on becoming pirates, but are having trouble getting our boat out to the water. With the moon high overhead and the dark sky bespeckled with stars, we pulled up to a bridge and are halted by a closed gate. I get out and cross with some of the group. We walk up to a rental building with lights on and people about. I argue with the workers and attempt to convince them to help us get our boat in the water.

After failing in our efforts to persuade them to either let us cross or to help us, the rest of our group ran up to us and alerted us to our boat’s ill fate. Someone had pushed our boat over the bridge and into the water. Our ship had not survived the impact and sunk.

As the night turned to day, me and only one from my group leave the rental building’s other side and crossed a well-kept field with patterns of white painted on it. My partner ran ahead, to get to our destination before me. I arrive not too long after, to a building in front of a small chain link fence. Following the fence to the left there is a street on a hill with graffiti coated buildings on either side. I know that we have people positioned there, though I can not see them. On the other side of the fence sat a single house guarded by trees and overgrowth. The building gives off the feeling that it had not seen inhabitants for some time.

To my regret, I saw someone already on the other side of the fence, compromising the mission. They are spotted, and we are all forced into action. My friend goes after a person, who carried with them a conspicuous briefcase, fleeing the building. That person is shadowed by a behemoth, who stopped my friend and made sure the briefcase handler could get away. Others of our group who are in body armor storm the building. Some go to help my friend who found themself hypnotised by the behemoth.

The plan had been to take the building and its occupants easily. We had people set in place, squads to go in, markers to know all who are in the area and spot any enemy they could, and peripheries who were positioned around the combat zone and would help wherever needed. Most everyone kept to their role, but the suddenness of our entry had many thrown into confusion. This did not last long as our Unity, who linked everyone’s minds for added coordination, had everyone working as a well oiled machine shortly. I realize that things are going worse than anyone seemed to know, and use the codeword “Guiser” and transfer my role as a peripheri to another so I could go in.


	34. Cold Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 01/12/2019. This dream has several lapses in time, but they all seem to at least spring off of one another. And it even has a memory of a previous dream in it, though the significance is minimal.

My parents had brought me and my siblings to a local bookstore, we had told that we would be bought one item of our choosing. Every wall decoration the store had leather incorporated into it with the rest of the store having brown bookshelves, tan walls, the smell of cinnamon incense, and windows lined with potted green. My siblings and I disperse into the isles that suited each of our tastes. After perusing for a bit, a book on magic catches my attention; I couldn’t keep myself from reading it more and more. My mother comes to check on me, breaking me from my reverie. On seeing the book, she casually mentions how relatives on her side of the family were capable of magic.

I assume she must have mistakenly said this as she immediately says I should put the book back and find something else. She could not close this box as I am now overtaken with frustration and excitement. I want to know why she had never told me about this, but I am more attuned to the prospect that, not only did magic exist, I am apparently capable of performing it. I put back the book and pick up a beginners book instead. I pick one of the passages from the beginning of the book and, after following the instructions of how to attune my mind, I have another book vanish from where it was and appear in my other hand. The largest limitation was that I needed to know where the object I wanted to move was in relation to where I wanted it to go.

Days later, I come back to the store of my own volition, planning to buy another book as I’ve now mastered the first one. I want to learn more, be able to do more. After skimming a book for a bit, I'm prompted by an unseen force to leave the store. I exit through the back door to a small stone courtyard. The mosaic, circular yard of gray stones look like it had been punched into a hill. To my left, up on the ridge under the shifting shade of verdant trees, a group of people walked and talked. This is not where the store was located, but I do recognize the place, I had seen it once before on my trip to London. (Authors note: This was a memory of a previous dream of a trip to London.) 

I decide to try and understand what went wrong by asking the store clerk. I turn to find the window in the door broken and the store inside dark. The Inside emanates a musty scent and the furniture is strewn about. Something absent tells me what had happened. The store itself is enchanted to be in multiple locations at once; when I exited the building, I found myself in one of its many locations. Then, when I strayed too far away, I had lost my connection to the store and thus could no longer enter. Normally, the store is a husk of a building and it’s not until one is welcomed entry that they can enter. My mother had not warned me about any of this. I leave the empty store, deciding to find someone to help me get back home.

With the bit of magic I had learned over the past week, I draw attention away from myself. I walk along a road -which had beautiful red accents- that snaked its way through victorian-styled buildings. I ascend a staircase on the side of a tall, old building. I look out of the tower as many have done in the past. The tower had been built on top of a hill to look over the once countryside for invaders. I am unable to decide where exactly I should go for help, so I continue to wander the city.

While walking through a building, I find that people are beginning to notice my presence. I pick up my pace, knowing that I was in an area I would not be allowed in; everything around me was too ornate, too lavish. Feeling the pressure, my hurried walk becomes a race for the exit. In hindsight, my pursuers likely chased me after seeing that I was running away from them.

To try and get away from the figures I knew were right behind me, I take many turns down many corridors. Another turn and I am running down a hall with ivory pillars separated by portraits on either side. The hallway has white walls appear behind me and disappear in front of me. This does not stop those chasing me; I see them pass through the walls with expressions of cautious confusion. At the end of the hall, after the final wall vanishes, I find a potato-shaped object that feels very wrong. I know they’re still after me, so I hide behind the strange object.

One of my pursuers, young and in uniform, does not seem to notice the object and trips over it. Their body quickly begins to distort, like something inside their skin was pushing to get out. Their skin grows patches of purple and from those patches sprouts root-like growths. My other pursuer, an elderly man, passes into the isolated room and first notices the young person writhing on the carpet. The elderly man whispers words I could not hear and touches an arrowhead they pulled from their coat to the young person’s lips. From the point of contact, a wave passes slowly over their body, returning it to normal.

Time skip

I find myself in an industrial library waiting in a lengthy line to talk to a librarian. Not wanting to stand in line, I sit in a chair next to a cart full of books. Each person ahead of me in line seems to take several minutes to get what they want to be done, done.

To alleviate my boredom, I have a shoe vanish off of then appear next to the foot of one of the people in line. Just as I smile at my small prank, someone comes up behind me. I sigh in relief as they had come to talk with me, they had not witnessed my small prank. They ask what I’m waiting for and I tell them that I need to speak with the librarian to confirm the completion of a class.

Time skip.

A convenience store, which has had its roof caved in from several years of landslides, sits at the base of a cliff. The surrounding shanty town begged for more living space in the crater. My partner and I exit the convenience store and climb the mountain out of the town and into the forest. We walk with a spell that prevents us from exuding any sort of pressure from the rubble or blades of grass we tread on.

I can’t help but be skeptical of the grass that refused to bend under my weight. Despite my worries, we arrive at our destination, a wooded area next to a nondescript building. My friend points out a small pearlescent crystal hollow buried in the grass. There appears to a shiny arachnid that made the strange structure its home inside, though it vanishes too quickly and has me guessing at its very existence.

My partner draws my attention to a couple of construction workers who were beginning to look toward us. I know I must deal with them so my partner can complete the project without distraction. I disguise myself in the same wardrobe as the workers and head over to meet with them. I duck behind a tree, out of sight, and completely remove the spell keeping myself hidden. I emerge from the tree chastising them, how they were lazing about and not being where they were meant to be. At first they were ready to believe me and leave, but they became skeptical.

Knowing the building was likely a business complex of sorts, I guess they would have business cards in there. Imagining where one likely would be, I feel paper suddenly appear in my hand in my vest pocket. I hand them the card and tell them to call us if they have any problems. This seemed to reassure them as they leave soon after glancing at the card.

Time skip

In an area sectioned off for people to study, I sit at my computer, trying to finish another project. I have trouble focusing on the task at hand as anything else going on around me is more interesting. All the other tables are filled with people, their noise amplified by the multistoried building having a large opening in the center of the room. It is nice to be able to see down to the first floor from the third, but it carried sound well. The constant chatter finally gets to me and I pick up my laptop to find a more quiet spot to work.

I leave through a heavy door, closing the noise off behind me. In front of me, up a flight of grand stairs, stood two angles, one with wings as white as snow and the other with wings black like a raven’s. They stand outside with the sun slightly obscuring them -at the top of the staircase is a doorway to a courtyard garden. They loom over an unmoving body; I quickly realize the person is dead. The darkness of the domed room begins closing in on me. I hear them speak of turning people with [forgotten] into Winged Ones. They mention that this particular one was a failure and to throw it in with the others.

I want to scream at them, tell them what they are doing is terrible, but I am unable to. Instead, I ran up to them, ready to do whatever I can to attack them. I’m blown back to the bottom of the stairs. I see them look down at me in judgment. They say that I am “cold” then fly away.


	35. Hero’s Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 03/??/2019. The heroes and villains are the stereotypical kind from something like Marvel or DC. And, the reason the old man’s ability is known is solely due to dream logic.

A person finds themselves among a murder of villains, not yet realizing that they are villainous. They assume the people they are with to be good, as any normal human would be. It’s not until the party is interrupted by known heroes that the person realizes their situation. During the ensuing kerfuffle, one of the greatest and most well-respected heroes is slain. This is when the person manages to slip away, to flee to an unused room of the building they are in.

In a small bedroom, the person backs up to the glass door that guards the interior from the porch. They pull with them a small child, ready to pick them up and run when the opportunity presents itself. Sweat drips down the person’s neck as a lanky wrinkled man with a gray, triangular beard enters the room. The person knows that they should not speak a word to the elderly man. If they were to speak, the elderly man would use the words to hypnotize them, having all hope of escape be lost. The elderly man walks with a swagger, making his way closer on his own time. The person knows that they have little chance to escape; they stand with the appearance of being indomitable anyways.

The man taunts them, trying to make the person speak. He gets within arms reach. The person uses their shoulder to smash through the door, trying to protect the child in their arms. Glass flies everywhere and the man stunned with confusion, the person gets up, picks up the child, and jumps over the porch’s railing. The person hits the ground floor below on their back, the child cradled tightly in their arms. They make sure the child is safe before staggering to get up again. With every step bringing feeling back into their body, they usher the child into the woods, not looking back.

The two stop at a concrete divot in the woods. The structure is covered in graffiti, moss, litter, and vines; the person was in too much pain to even try to figure out its purpose. Right then, its purpose was to hide them.


	36. Espionage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 03/??/2019. The dream follows a detective trying to trail some shady organization while being forced to have a rich spoiled kid as his pupil.

Three people emerged from a dimly lit building to a bright docking yard: a detective, a teenager, and the teenager’s butler. The detective left the other two, saying their presence would compromise his cover. This was true, the teenager was inexperienced, but there was more that he would not tell them. In truth, he was ever so slightly frightened of the teenager.

The butler watched from a secluded vantage point as the teenager pulls a man multiple times his size into an alleyway. The teen interrogated the man, beating him whenever he failed to answer a question.

The detective trailed close to the water, watching the people load and unload ships. He spotted the group of interest, three figures huddled together next to a dock. The boat must not have arrived just yet, the detective could not let the slimmer of opportunity pass him by. The detective hobbled up to the trinity with his head down and his hands gripped tightly to his crutches. He bumped into one of them, falling over in the process. Before the person he bumped could protest, the detective gets up in a fit of hysteria, shouting idiosyncrasies. He then changed his attitude rapidly and began to angrily whispered nonsense. He feigned trouble walking with his crutches, nearly falling several times on his exit.

The detective is not out of sight of the group before the teenager comes running to him, a wide grin on their face. The detective pulled a finger to his lips, desperately hoping the trio behind him do not notice nor recognize the teen. He glanced back to see them enter a dual ship, one that could sail the sea or swim under the city. After watching the ship submerge and disappear, the detective turned back to the teenager, throwing aside his crutches.

The detective calmly told the teenager that they had made a mistake beating than man and soon after came running to him. It would not take much for them to make the connection back to the detective if anyone were to gossip.


	37. Along the City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 03/??/2019. This dream wasn’t remembered too well. Rebuilding it, nearly every sentence was disparate and had no cohesion between one another.

I left my vehicle, a cross between a motorcycle and a car that has three wheels, in a parking lot. Leaving a room with concrete and thin red pipes, I came back to discover a strange man in my vehicle, starting it. Furious, I run and tip the bike over, spilling the bewildered man onto the asphalt. I had feelings of “he will claim the bike is his and label me as the thief” that cloud my judgement. Before my feelings could be made ill-favored action, I get on the bike and ride off.

I saw images of a small town’s commercial district where its buildings had no walls and no roofs. Night covered the land and the distant overcast boiled with lightning, threatening a downpour. Coming back to the present, I found myself scaling the side of a building on the side of a river. One misstep from the graffiti-covered ledge would have sent me plummeting to the icy waters below. I made it over the building and cross the city’s amber-lit nighttime street.


	38. Balloon Castle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 04/06/2019. While the first two parts did have some cohesion with the dream, the final part is completely different. The dream itself turns from first person following a princess in a fantasy land to first person in my average home. I would normally split these dreams, but the were sequential during the night and neither are very long.

After a long and tiring journey, the princess returned to her castle. Her castle was not like others as it had been built in solitude. It stood as a lone sentinel of the vast sea of grass that stretched farther than the eye could see. When she strode up to the front gates, she was denied entry by one of the puppet master’s guards. Every entryway she subsequently came to had the same result of her being turned away.

She recalled the puppet master and his workshop. There was a line of inactive puppets that down the wooden tunnel that was his workshop. They were large, not just because she was a child at the time, but because they were built the size of five soldiers each. The bear-like puppets were made of white fabric, their comically large and bulbous noses drooping as they laid inactive. She remembered the puppet master activating one, a spark shone in its beady eyes.

She needed to get inside the castle, her home. She called upon the demon she had been traveling with. It possessed her, having her skin turn grey like stone and sprout bat-like wings from her back. Together, they flew up to an open window and entered the dusty attic.

Time skip

Out on the grassy plane not too far from the castle, there are several people tied each to a balloon. The princess is among them, the balloon giving her enough buoyancy to float just above the ground. She felt like she could fly. She needed to focus, getting shot was not a pleasant affair. The bullets would not kill her, not while they did not graze her scalp, but they did still hurt. She needed to focus, to shoot the others across the scalp.

Time skip

I am expecting to receive a package and am overjoyed when it arrives. Inside the package, which I had expected to find, is two birds -a budgie and another rust-colored bird- and a frog with black, green, and yellow markings. The budgies talons dig into my hand, but I endure the pain and try to hand it off to someone else. When the budgie grips their arm, they complain about the pain.

My cat tries to catch the birds. They fly around for a bit before hiding under the seat that had been removed from a car. I snatch my cat up in one arm and hold the three small animals in the other. I grew flustered as I then, with full arms, had to keep the monkey from eating the birds, frog, and the cat while also keeping the cat from eating the birds and frog.


	39. Spelunking Preparation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 04/09/2019. This dream starts fairly generic, for me, but turned into a nightmare. And like many nightmares, explaining what happens does not come close to matching the emotions of the experience.

A friend and I roamed a 7-11 to pick up extraneous junk. We rounded the drink-station corner, my friends’ arms full of unhealthy food, to the checkout counter in the center of the store. The old lady cashier greeted us as my friend poured the items onto the countertop.

The greying lady asked me to take care of something for her, a dungeon below the store. I had -apparently- done such a task before, though I had no memory of doing so. I wanted to help, so I accepted the task, not knowing entirely what it entailed. Brought behind the counter, she lead me down a flight of stairs.

Rather than a store, the stairs gave the portrayal that I entered someone’s home; the home of someone that I knew from long ago. Halfway down the white-carpeted stairs, a landing turns the path leftward. The corners of the stair treads begged for my attention, they were donned with small cactuses, aloe, succulents, and other minimal maintenance plants. The old lady who hired me picked up one of the petite plants and hurled it against the wall, shattering it. She explained that she was not annoyed with my halted progress but with the plant itself.

When I reached the bottom, I took a look around. To my left was a long checkered corridor, reminiscent of an airplane hanger, that opened to a storm rolling in over a sunset. The hanger was empty, save for someone, of whom I knew, that ran to meet me. Not wanting to talk to them, as they would keep me from my assigned task, I head straight from the stairs. I told myself it was to get to work, but in truth, I simply did not wish to talk to them.

I opened the carved wardrobe that was the entrance to the dungeon. The wooden box held within it impossible space. Inside, the wardrobe opened to a staircase, while the outside was average and unimpressive. I stepped inside and closed the weighty door behind me. The empty box became cramped having to house both me and my overstuffed backpack. I sat at the top of stairs that descended into bleak darkness, hesitant to get started. I could only see a few steps down as it spiraled into nothingness. The ceiling did not help my increase in unease, it was low enough where I would have to duck the entire trip down.

The day ended more swiftly than I had expected; the night’s darkness sucked out what little light I had from the slit in the wardrobe. Wanting to see, I took out my phone to turn on its flashlight. I fumble with the thin brick, unable to properly see what I was doing. The screen was blurred and uncharacteristically dim to where I could not make out what displayed. My inability to turn on the light -and scare off the encroaching darkness- had me grow ever more stressed. My stress evolved to anger at the darkness for hampering me, so I opened the door to let in light. The night was oppressing; however, what little light it did give allowed me to see my general surroundings.

I shuddered when I heard a loud click behind me. I turned around and my heart leapt into my throat. Before me, a ghastly and inhuman figure crawled up from the darkness. Its long pale face stretched over sullen eyes. Its sharp and gnarled teeth could not fit behind its torn lips. Its torn and stained body stretched and disappeared far into the darkness below. It used its gangly, pointed hand to reach for me.


	40. Banana Peddler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 04/11/2019. The feelings that I had during this dream was overwhelming sorrow for, pity for, and a wanting to help the kid. I felt so bad for him, despite the ridiculousness of his job.

A small group of suits discussed this and that about business. A kid came to be among them and complained about an injustice that the suits were doing to him. The suits ignored him, acting as though he were an insect.

The kid gave up trying to get their attention and headed for his store. He passed through the hedge garden, burrowing through the bushes in a direct line to his goal. He emerged from one of the verdant and tall hedges to the main street, a dirt path lined with specialty shops on either side. The kid kicked up dust as he crossed during an absence of vehicles.

His stand, of which he was quite proud of, was crafted and painted to resemble a banana. The upright fruit made of wood had a serving window cut into it. The window was higher than the kid was tall -he had a small platform on the inside he would stand on. The kid muttered to himself, reminiscing on how long he had wanted this shop. His dream of selling chocolate-covered bananas, banana splits, and other banana themed desserts took too long to be realized.

Almost realized.

The shadow of his limitations grew long over his hut. The brick building next door always blocked the sun during this time of day, darkening the welcoming yellow of his hut. He hated that shop. He hated its stupid neon sign; he hated the corporate dingleberries that ran the place; he hated they were taking his business. They too sold chocolate-covered bananas and banana splits among many other non-banana desserts.

It wasn’t even his fault that they would be so mean to him. It wasn’t his fault his father was a villain. It wasn’t his fault he had to pay for the damages and debts his father accumulated before he was thrown in jail. He wanted to sell bananas and would pay his debts with that dream. But these people, these suits, they had to make it as hard for him as possible. They set up this brick monstrosity purposefully next to his hut just to make it harder for him. They must have, they owned that place.

The kid spent the rest of the day in his hut, sweating profusely from the summer heat. He didn’t have money for air conditioning, how could he. Not mentioning how humid it was, he spent the day in misery. And, like so many days before, no one came up to his shop. He didn’t see anyone even look his way; they probably just didn’t see his shop because the corporate one next door probably blinded them.

After an unsuccessful day, the kid closed his hut dragged himself to the store next door. He crossed the tiled floor, ignoring the janitor cleaning up for closing, and shuffled up to the counter. The cashier was there waiting for him, unhappy that he had to take money from this clearly unhappy kid. But the kid owed money and it was his job to be the middle-man. It still didn’t feel any less wrong as the kid pushed a few bills and some change across the counter. The kid had made one-hundred and fifty dollars this week. The cashier frowned as they took the money. They wondered if there was some way to change the kid’s poor situation.


	41. Where Next

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 04/15/2019. This dream starts off unique then takes cues from a previous dream. After I remember a previous dream within this dream, the rest takes place almost as a continuation of that previous dream.

The world is ending, though I’m unsure as to how exactly. What I do know is that my family and I need to leave our home. My brother is off who knows where and we don’t have time to find him. As we leave our once home behind, carrying only the bare necessities, I worry for my brother. I hope he is alive.

I claim one of the seats in the front after boarding the bus. As the bus lurches to life, I notice a peculiar cat. The cat meanders around the bus and opens trap doors below the passengers. The people fall, silent, to their deaths. That cat is exceedingly stealthy. So stealthy that it has everyone on the bus is clueless as to why the people around them are disappearing. I try my best to explain to the people about the dangerous animal aboard, but I fail utterly at making cohesive or interoperable sounds.

I need to get people moving and explanations are too difficult. I change my tactic, I inform the people in short concise sentences what I need them to do. I tell them to get up and change seats, to leave the seat the cat chose empty. To little surprise, they do not listen to me. My frustration leaps from my own incompetence in communication to the people’s lack of obedience. I eventually give up, allowing them to reap the rewards of not listening to me. I hope they will come to their senses eventually -when enough of them are dead.

After an extensive trip, we disembark the bus and spread out over a field. It’s night and everyone is beyond exhausted. I had been near this area once before (from a previous dream that included driving in a jungle and a greenhouse). I look far off into the distance in an attempt to see the structures I had visited, the overgrown ruins of an ancient civilization. I can just barely make out the cliff in the distance, the one that had a tunnel bored into it to enter the jungle. We make plans to continue to the tunnel and hide in the ruins beyond the coming morning.

Time skip.

Desperately clinging to the mattress with both hands, my body sways over the edge. I fear the tumult below, the rapids and the dozens of sharp rocky teeth jutting out from them. I know the river leads outside, though I do not know where. My father and I had been set to explore the ruins of a great temple. I plead with him to save me as I can feel my hands slipping. He’s too late, the mattress flips over and I am sent plummeting to my doom.

Lady luck must have been on my side as I avoid hitting the teeth. I breach the water as quickly as I could and scramble for the mattress so close by. I clutch the corner of the makeshift raft as we’re tossed downriver. The rushing water calms as it rounds a corner to spill outside the temple. I’m thrown over a waterfall and into a pool where many people are having a good time. After regaining myself, I recognise the people as the people I had escaped with.


	42. Shade’s Origin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 04/26/2019. Wander leaves his home to uncover the source of demons. I decided to put a name to the person the dream followed to make writing easier.

Maroon creatures of shade stalked the lowest floor of the house. Outside, darkness no natural night could have wrought smothered the ocean and city. Wander hid away upstairs after finding that the house’s electronics no longer worked. In desperate need of light, he hastily grabbed a box of matches, spilling its contents all over the floor in the process. After scrambling to pick up as many matches as he could, he headed downstairs to slip by the demons. Staying out of sight, he struck a match against the igniter of the box. It did not ignite. He tried again, several times more, and the match remained dull. He took out another and scraped it on the concrete floor. Success, the tiny stick sputtered and enkindled. He put the fledgling fire to the wooden stairs, holding it until embers emerged and the flame spread. Wander raced outside before the house could be fully engulfed. He hoped the demons stayed inside.

Wander fled to an open street patrolled by numerous military vehicles, mostly tanks, and military personnel. The sudden appearance of demons had the nation respond without delay and be put under a state of emergency. Tarp, one security measure, ruffled overtop all buildings, no matter how tall. The patrol and other barriers did not keep Wander from slipping outside the city limits.

As Wander emerged outside the city, a place few ever dared leave to explore before and seldom they returned, he found himself in awe. Before him spanned a beryl field dotted with lattice trees and cloaked in fresh air. Beholding this land that slightly frightened him, Wander finds that he had been followed. Hundreds of fellow citizens had seen him walk out of the city and followed him, hoping to escape the demons that besieged them. The people thought that Wander, the only one to even think of leaving, would lead them to safety. They followed his steps onto the crisp grass, apprehensive yet hopeful. The further they made from the city the more people turned back, they more willing to stand known danger than walk to unknown hope. Many of them came to the idea that, though overbearing, the military set to and will indeed shield them from the demon menace.

By the time the city that was a bastion sank below the horizon, three followers remained with Wander. An overweight man who spoke seldom kept a distance from the group. A woman and a child, not related by blood, traveled always in hand. All three had nothing to return to back in the city. Wander’s quest to uncover and expunge the source of the demons provided them the least bit of hope for their future. And, possibly, along the way, they might find a home that would provide them with a greater will to live.

After a time of travel, during which the group commandeered an abandoned -yet unexpectedly functional- vehicle, they came to a place cloaked in a preternatural haze. The earth shook with the stomping and moaning of huge demons all around. That they crept among so many demons without being beset upon was no short of a miracle. Though the group kept themselves alert and weapons ever at the ready, they would surely all perish if more than a few demons were to attack. One of the demons came uncomfortably close by Wander; the grey shelled beast the size of a small house did not seem to notice him.

The woman directed Wander’s attention to a giant pair of scissors resting atop a stone pillar. She claimed the strange object as hers and that she needed Wander to help her topple the pillar to retrieve them.

Time skip.

The four drove up to an empty town and abandoned their drained vehicle. The submerged land proved difficult to traverse, its streets of water snaking under bridges and next to cobblestone roads. Statues peaked out from the rivers, standing steadfast in the soft currents. Wander had a feeling he could not shake, a feeling that he had been here once before; been to this town for an extended term.

Wander stood on one of the many bridges and looked to the river street below. Seeing no other way to cross, he dove and plunged into the coolness below, doing so with little grace. The currents ushered him downriver while he swam perpendicular to reach one of the statues. The rest of the group hesitantly watched from the bridge. On seeing Wander make it to the statue then to the other side, they did too dive to follow.

After moving from one vacated town to another, Wander and his followers rested for the night. They did have spare light for the upcoming darkness, the building’s circuitry loosely worked. Wander fiddled with the map he had brought, a technological marvel that interprets the landscape around them and records it. The map’s functionality faltered from being encased by concrete walls. They had traveled down narrow corridors -to avoid demons- and Wander needed to know their location. The map displayed where they had been previously and empty data where they likely were now. Wander attempted to extend the map north-west, but the device refused to comply and spouted back corrupted images.

To help ease the boredom of the child, the overweight man had handed them a comic book. The man did so reluctantly, having the book be one of the few belongings he brought him. It took the man hours of the child pestering him to when he finally caved. Only after the child was near the end did Wander and the woman discovered the deed. Wander took the man away to berate him, astonished at the lack of backbone he had. The woman remained with the child to explain the explicit images held within the pages.

When Wander returned, he grew irate. The woman and the child had become reptilian demons with countless appendages. Wander left the two to run the map device under water. It was not with the two that he was frustrated but with himself. What he had witnessed was a vision of the future, a happening he had been plagued with for the past few days. He would need to also prevent this outcome in whatever way he could. He needed to focus on one problem at a time, so Wander disassembled the mapping device.

The man, the woman, and the child strode babbling into the room Wander toiled in. The woman turned to Wander, excitedly claiming to have flown. Wander stopped what he was doing, looked her in the eyes, and found the reason. Demons were beginning their possession of her, he could already see them within her. Wander spoke into the fine details, but he could see he was losing everyone in the room. The woman ignored what he had to say as he had told her before. She thought it was complete nonsense. Powers manifesting were not from some beings in an alternate dimension but of a fundamental force that existed under their own reality. Wander did not ever remember telling her of the truth.

Wander ascended to where he had his vision. The room was empty. He stared out of the window to observe the overly crowded city below. Buildings were bunched together as if some giant had pushed them. Some buildings had barely a few inches between them, some were surrounded without room to breathe. Streets seemed to be a commodity. The building they found themselves in must have been for the wealthy as below him was not only a street but also a courtyard.

Wander hopped from the window onto roof tiles a few feet below. He then jumped onto the roof of the building so close. The roof gave way under his weight, folding in on itself like it was stuffed cloth. He heard shouting from below him. The city was inhabited and Wander did not want to find himself cast in an ill light by these strange people. He inched to the edge of the roof and hopped from one building to the next, progressively getting closer to the ground. He noted that, below him, the people of this bastion were too afraid to walk their own streets -of what little there were. They traveled in vehicles and stayed in their lit structures.

Wander made his way down to street level and over to a beach nearby. It seemed that the sandy patio did not abide by the same rules as the city for it was littered with men, women, and children. The people went about their business, visiting attractions such as restaurants, jet-ski rentals -among other water sports rental shops-, and more.

Wander suddenly lost touch with the ground when a gust of wind took him into the air. The current carried him along the shore. It was not the wind that carried him but some unseen force that pulled him. The further the gale took Wander, the fewer people there were and the further the sun sank beneath the horizon. Wander noted a man sitting by a large dumpster with his fishing rod cast out. The force slammed Wander into the embrace of a tree before dragging him to the other side to continue the trip.

Time skip.

Wander searched the darkened streets for the child. They were not with the woman nor with the man when the sun had set. The streets were too dangerous for them to be out alone. He heard them, so faint, and followed the noise to its source. He lifted a thin piece of tin, uncovering the child who sat curled up under the fading luminescence of a flashlight.


	43. Vacation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 04/28/2019. This dream has me traveling to a resort. Though, upon reflection, it’s more like a large public swimming pool with a rest area. It’s a lot more normal and grounded in reality than a lot of my dreams.

I rode a charter bus with no more than a handful of others. The bus glided along a road stretching through a marshland, bumping with only the widest cracks or tallest bumps in the road. I bowed my head in obstinance to the nettlesome man next to me. It had been difficult to bite my tongue and endure his incessant and irritating antics. I knew that If I were to do anything to have him stop -such as a scheme of pointing his actions out to another claiming “look, isn’t this annoying”- I would be the recipient of their displeasure.

Almost as if prompted, the bus broke down. I stayed abroad while my brother and another disembarked to figure out what went wrong. They did, in time, bring the bus back into working shape and we rode on.

After a few more hours we pulled up to the resort. My classmates had already arrived. They took more speedy means of transportation such as their own cars, carpooling, and a bus that took them directly to the resort. They stood in front of the entrance with nothing to do but wait. Their, our, event organizer was busy elsewhere doing what I could only assume was talking with the resort staff to let everyone in.

I melded into the crowd and overhear someone exposit the excursion's length. I had assumed it would be for only one day. I was wrong. I had to fix my mistake and call my father to pick me up. I had class the next day.

My father could not have picked me up.

I had been to that resort before. I came there years ago with another class from another school. Unlike what I remembered the place from the time prior, it was absolutely packed with people. I did not want to lose the people I knew to the masses, so I followed two I loosely knew.

I stopped following them after I had realized they were not going to the rented rooms. I doubled back as I could follow them no further. At least, I tried returning to the entrance, but I quickly became lost. The number of strangers had my heart racing and eyes darting. I walk through a bookstore, a place with slightly fewer people. The books had mosaic covers like tiles and the edges to the store were delineated by a change in floor material. The whole place was completely open. Stores, walkways, gathering areas, all contained in a single room. Some of the more luxurious stores had short walls no taller than chest height.

I began a descent down a concrete hallway to the right of the changing rooms. It took me until I had made it halfway down to remember where the path led to: a doorway to the giant pool behind the resort. I head back up and give my efforts to finding the sleeping rooms area again. As I headed up, I saw a woman walking to smartly groomed dogs. She and the people around are older and have a hoity-toity air to the way they look and the way they speak.

I found myself in the cafeteria area. I liked the area more as I could see over the people sitting at tables, as opposed to the shuffling between bodies I had been doing up until that point. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was not a cafeteria area; no one had food at their tables aside from a few bags of chips here and there.

Two elderly women, never getting up from their table, asked if I was lost. I told them I was and asked for directions to the sleeping rooms area. I noticed that there were two people I knew from my class at the table as well. They ignored me. One of the elderly women -who wore an extravagant hat- pointed in the direction I need to go along with giving me verbal directions for what to look for on the way. The entrance to the sleeping rooms area was on the complete other side of the gigantic room next to a café.

I made it only three quarters the way before I couldn’t take it anymore and sat at a table. The anxiety of the class I would miss boiled in my chest. I texted my father to ask if I could be picked up.

As I put my phone down, wishing for a quick response, I’m greeted by two people I knew. They were on their way down to the pool and asked me if I wanted to join them. I told them I had made a mistake by coming and that the trip interfered with my other classes. After a shared look of confusion, one told me that everything had been sorted out already; hadn’t I signed the waiver?

Upon this revelation, I quickly texted my father “nvm” and asked the two if they could show me where the rooms are. I had gotten lost. They lead me just there, to a hallway with doors lining either side. One of them asked someone nearby who my roommates were, as they didn’t know which was mine. The stranger politely showed me the way to my room.


	44. Organized Crime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 04/29/2019. No, I don’t think it’s a good idea to hang outside the place you steel from. Dream logic says otherwise.

Before now, I had stolen something with someone, though I can’t recall what or with whom. The specifics don’t matter, it had proved my worth to this company. Now, I board their airship; the navy blue of the ship's ballon melded seamlessly into the starless night sky. We are all set to steal an important object from a locked room in a well-guarded estate.

With the ship ready in waiting outside, one of the crew and I unlock and open the door. They wave their hand, signaling it’s clear to move inside. The room is devoid of life. Contained in the square room is: an arcade cabinet, a piece of paper with fireworks printed on it taped to the wall beside the door, a hoodie lying heaped in a corner, and a rocket launcher in another corner. I stifle my guilt of stealing from this person. I know they will be devastated to discover their weapon stolen. My partner comments on how they’ll live in luxury from the price that rocket launcher will fetch. I decided it would be too immoral for us to take it. That this person has such a weapon in such a strange place, it must carry heavy sentimental value for them; also considering the engraving on the side. After a few choice words, I convince my partner we should take everything else and leave the rocket launcher.

The heist now complete, I chat with the crew of the ship. We are some distance away from the building, waiting to see what will happen when the people of the estate discover the theft. We loiter just outside the checkpoint to the estate in a public space. Though the night grows old, the streets are so well illuminated that we have no trouble seeing everything. After confirming the estate is on alert for intruders, we leave to grab a drink.

We sit at a table in the corner of a dimly lit bar. My eyes had to constantly adjust to the lack of light then to the bright holographic signs depicting a menu of drinks in the center of the table. The person next to me, the captain of the ship, asks for my business card; they wish to utilize my services again in the future. I give a voice command to my wrist to show my ID. A screen of light stretches over my skin. My assistant responds in text -voice would be inopportune at the moment- with my ID number. In place of where my ID should be, I receive a blinking question mark. I ask it where my ID was, I know I had received my new one last week. It states in white text that I have not yet received my ID, then asks if I wished to initiate the process of obtaining it. I wave my hand over the light, I don’t wish to deal with that hassle right now.


	45. God With Coarse Fur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 05/10/2019. This dream’s main idea is if a deity where to want to be with a mortal. Why they want this, I don’t know. And, in the dream, the god has Storge love.

A war raged over the grey plateau far off in the distance. A small band rushed to the aid of their comrades. Amid the chaos atop a lone cliff stood a god. The being took the form similar to a deer with blue fur and rainbow features. The divine being brought with it another, its paramour of mortality, a lesser creature of the world crowned with a golden crescent.

During the madness of war, the god’s chosen was slain, mortality ripping them away from the world. Everything stilled in the haze of anger the divine radiated. With grave apprehension, a lone person of those who had come late approached the god. The individual knows their life would come to a swift end if they were not prudent; not only theirs but the lives of all those around them, friend and foe. Even so, they alone attempted quelling the rage of the god. The individual came up to the splendid beast and caressed its coarse wiry fur as though it were a frightened pup.

The god admired the mortal's bravery. It calmed and spared those around it, including the ones who had slain its mortal interest. It no longer mourned for its loss for it now had a new being to find solace within. It would, from then to their death, follow the brave mortal and observe them in all they will do.

The god, sized to better accommodate the mortal's lifestyle, then rested in the mortal's arms. The mortal had become great, earning lordship and the creation of their grand castle. The mortal, though stupid, interperated the diety's actions to imply it had the mentality of a small child. And as with a small child, they must coddle them to happiness, less demands unfulfilled send the diminutive divine into a rage.

One of his subjects once asked the mortal king how they could comprehend the god's intentions. The mortal king, alone, may bare its words though it spoke in the common tongue. This did not assuage their suspicion. This strange being in the king’s lap, it would be outrageous for it to be a god.


	46. The Witch and the Flaming Bull + A Tribe’s Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 05/10/2019. The first dream is of a guy running away from a flaming bull. The second is a waning tribe crushed under “big business”. For the second dream, I had the entire entry here follow the daughter so the switch in perspective half way through wouldn’t be too jarring.

He came sprinting from the building, a bull cloaked in fire charging after him. He weaves through the great red pillars of the building’s ramada to elude the beast. He gains distance as the beasts mighty weight carries it skidding each rounding of a pillar. He hides behind a pillar and pulls out his trinket: two leather scraps tied together by a string. Holding the string, he shakes the trinket so the leather slaps together once. A distinct, alien sound washes over the area. He peeks around the corner, sighing when he finds the pull in a temporary stupor.

A witch emerges from behind a pillar. He knows she had always been there, but it was only then that he could see her. He moves quickly to request of her a favor. She refuses. He becomes aggravated and grabs her familiar. He runs back to a sealed gate and tells her he will release the creature if she were to agree. She reluctantly does so and has the gate open. And as she does so, the fiery bull comes charging around a corner. He tries luring it to the other side of the gate.

* * *

 

She lives with her small family of five. One is her father and the other three are her uncles. The muffled sound of waves crashing on fine sand can be heard through the hut’s walls. The girl and her father watch her uncle and another tribesman leave on a narrow boat out into the foam-blanketed waters. Dark clouds roll over the sky bringing with them moaning winds and gaping waves. They can’t afford to squander any opportunity they have to fish.

Her uncle does not return.

Her family is so few in number now. Her uncle had needed to bring back fish to sell to the big business. Without the money earned from the fish... They aren’t faring so well. Her mother had disappeared under mysterious circumstances no less than a moon ago. Since then, things have gotten so much worse.

Her father and two remaining uncles talk low around the nighttime fire. They must do something… soon. One of her uncles suggests to marry her off. She stifles her protest. She knows it is not her place to have any say in these kinds of matters. He continues, saying they could marry her to a larger family. Her father balks at the offer. She smiles at him, thankful.

A gunshot interrupts their meeting. It’s found that the invaders had executed someone, but that is later. Now, the girl sees the pale figure of her mother at the end of a cave carved by the ocean. She uses the commotion and confusion to chase after her mother, down the eerily lit cavern. She knew if she could get her mother to return, everything would be alright.

Deep in the cave, in a sacred place, she argues with her mother’s spirit. She pleads with her to open the cave to others. If she would do so, they all could be saved. Her mother refuses.


	47. Green Train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 05/11/2019. Who would think to put a full arcade on a train?

With my face rested against the cool window, I watched the ocean pass endlessly by. The train bumped rhythmically along the track, lulling me. I pulled my back from the seat’s rough green fabric, stood up, and shuffled through the narrow leg room. Through the other side’s windows, I watched a small town fly by. No one talked in the cart, they all kept to themselves.

I dragged myself towards the front of the train, towards the area reserved for people with more money. My friend rode up there, I knew they were having a blast in the arcade. I needed to talk to them. I made it as far as was allowed for me and waited for them. Emerging with a lingering smile, they closed the music and dark neon lights behind them. They nodded to the bouncer before turning to me.

I didn’t have much time to talk with them. He didn’t seem too concerned when I told him that some of the passengers had me at unease. They didn’t really reassure me, either, before the bouncer sent me back to my cart. Alone.

I made it back to my seat just in time for the train shake on impact. Water splashed up on the windows. The train then cut through shallow ocean.

I was right, there had been something wrong with the passengers. Though I don’t know if they were aliens or werewolves, they were certainly not human.


	48. Invasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 05/13/2019. This dream follows the aftermath of an alien invasion.

The Arms had invaded not too long ago. We, humans, responded with swiftness and with hostility. I, among others, managed to escape the first wave of devastation caused by both sides. I ran with the masses at first before everyone dispersed or hid.

I marked one house with a green line as I passed it, claiming it as mine. Everyone was doing it. No one lived anywhere anymore, so why not take it. I continued to flee from the disaster and I soon lost sight of the Arms. Then, I came to an area where every building was marked with a claim.

Realizing there was no point in going farther, I returned to my claim, my new home. I became furious when I found another had painted over my mark. On top of that, they replaced the one door with a metal sheet. I banged my fist against the new door, shouting at them.

Time went on from first contact. We, myself and the people around me, find that the Arms who made their homes, bases, [whatever they were] nearby made no moves to attack us. So many people became hysterical at the sight of them; quick to bare weapons or to flee. After all, we were at war. So, we set up a new local government after the collapse of society.

One day, the power-grabbed government sent me to meet with the Arms. I was the only one brave, stupid, crazy enough to do so. As I had suspected, the were not hostile. Quite the contrary, actually. They seemed to want to communicate, though the language barrier was tall and rigid. Not only were the words we spoke incomprehensible to one another, neither they nor I could understand each other's body language. The one thing that did come across is that they did not want to hurt me and I, them. At least, I didn’t think they were hostile. I lowered myself before them to look pathetic and helpless as possible. They mimicked me, but with their own strange mannerisms mixed in. I leave them unable to shake my instinctive wariness of them.

Later, I sat with the Council and a few members of the Arms. We’d gotten markedly better at communicating since our first meeting. And, I had convinced the council, thus our people, not to raise arms against the Arms. Well, not everyone was fully raring to cooperate.

The meeting progressed without issue, though the language barrier still proved difficult to work with. Both sides ended up drawing pictures of what they wanted to express. Moreover, the interpretations of those pictures varied wildly. It didn’t take long until a halt in understanding came; and with it, aggravation. To my horror, but no surprise, the one council member pulled out a gun, which we weren’t supposed to have, and shot one of the Arms. They profess how they had been firmly against the meeting from the start. Prompted by the lunatic, the guards pull out their weapons. The arms fled without retaliation.

In the next meeting with the council, we discussed the ‘situation’. No Arms were invited. One person, who I didn’t recognize, splays a map with colors signifying the Arms’ invasion patterns. They arrived through wormholes and appeared in points of power: government complexes, economic hubs, heavily-populated areas, etc. Rural areas, uninhabited areas, and parks were all but clear of wormhole denominators. The person used this as proof that they were evil beings out to get us.

At that point, I became disillusioned with the council and the people we swore to protect. I tell them I would leave and did.


	49. Power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 07/12/2019. Powerful humans are basically superheroes.

A woman casts her red spell. The man by her side protects her, so she would not lose concentration. She couldn't afford to, the spell was the one thing keeping the powerful human in check, in stasis.

Outside, a small militia prepares to attack. The large concrete structure bares the facade of being abandoned; they know their intel is true, this is the place. After breaching the entrance, humans corrupted and mutated besieged the group. Guns flash under the dim red light of the auxiliary power system. They lose more and more personal the further they delve.

They come to a cell walled off by a glass window, like a cage for an animal. There appears to be someone inside, unmoving. When the leader of the militia approaches, the corrupted person inside leaps at them. The team flees back to the entrance, their target is no longer human. They have the entrance close preemptively to seal away the corrupted. One of the corrupted grabs the leader’s ankle, tripping her. They know they will not make it, so they distract the corrupted, giving their team room to escape.

The bearded man bringing up the rear has their legs severed by automatic shutting of the entrance. They tell the others to leave them behind, they won’t survive anyway. Despite his plea, they did try to save him before the door began to open again. The corrupted had taken control of the facility and were trying to escape. The bearded man hits the one carrying them, pulling out their weapon to be a stopgap, like their leader had. The others flee into the surrounding forest, seeing the man fight a losing battle.

Inside the complex, the powerful beings' body gradually becomes loose and unravels. As the woman loses her concentration and thus control of the spell, another powerful human burst through the ceiling. The two had stalled long enough for their savior to arrive. The woman takes her guard and has them disappear in a milky cloud, leaving the rest to the uncorrupted powerful human.

The corrupted powerful human charges after the uncorrupted. Their fight breaks through the concrete of the building and brings them outside for the soldiers to watch. Though the soldiers watch, they can not comprehend the fight that took place beyond space and time. To the perspective of the uncorrupted, the world was either frozen in time, moved slowly, quickly, vanished, reappeared, and/or changed color and form.

Both super beings were equally matched, exchanging bloody blows with tremendous force. Blood covered them each, their bodies covered in purple welts, and some digits twisted or missing.

No one knows who won or who will win.


	50. War of Hate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 07/14/2019. Another dream with its inspiration on its sleeve. I guess it’s how my brain though the fight might have gone.

You are behind your king, ready to die with them and the legions behind you. You wear your shining armor and bare your spear with pride. You feel your silver sword clank against your hip with every step. Though you may fall, your people will live on when you stop the evil.

The men and women clad in shining armor and who carry weapons masterfully made follow your king. They follow the path along the cliff. You look over the gloomy forest below, you know that’s where the enemy lies in wait. You look back to the city, reminding yourself why you will fight.

The path narrows to allow only a single file march before ending at a small outcropping. The king stands before you, on a precarious ledge that would not bear the weight but of one. You press yourself to the cliff face to allow the general by. She needs to speak with the king in the remaining time of clarity you have.

You watch as the darkness race over the land, casting it in an evil shadow. The influence made manifest blankets the city, the trees, then the army. You barely see the tops of the trees below you and nothing in the distance, not your beloved city nor mountain nor stars nor moon. It is proof that the dark lord is come to meet you for battle.

For the first time in years, you grow frightened. The silence is deafening while both sides wait for the other to make the first move. You gain control over your fear when you see your king standing tall before you. It is when you looked to the king that you miss the general jumping off the cliff, doing so without a word. You wish to trust her, that she did so of her own volition, an attempt to accomplish something. You know she would not die from the fall.

Worry seeps into your heart as seconds go by without sound or movement below. Unwilling to continue not knowing the fate of the general, you take the torch of the soldier behind you and toss it over the edge. The torch lands on the generals slumped and unmoving body. Something had gotten to her in the shadows, an evil you do not see. Your fear creeps back into your throat. You want to leave, to be anywhere else but there. You tell your king your fears in hopes they would again steady you. They say nothing while looking over the forest. You cannot retreat, the path is too thin with too many soldiers behind you.

A lone sickly-green spider the size of a wolf pup tears up the cliff. You fear its gleaming black fangs the most, one bite would certainly mean your death. You kick the thing as it comes to meet your king, sending it flying back down into the darkness. 

The army erupts into a roar and the battle begins. Thousands of spiders scurry up the cliffside, being repelled by spears and carrying the odd soldier down to their doom. Emaciated hounds stream down from above you. Soldier’s shouts of valor devolve to screams of horror as they have no escape.


	51. Scholarship of Fae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 07/18/2019. Yet another dream that rapidly escalates. From researching magic to people fighting giant birds by the command of people aboard airships.

A researcher shoved their finished work into their roommate's hands. They had devoted the past few days using hexagonal fractals to create maps and a research paper on some mythical idea. When the math major they lived with took a look at the work, they were quite impressed. While the material had been nothing groundbreaking, the math major admired effort put in and logic working. The researcher fumbles their words of how they had seen a Thirion in the pool of their home, which spurred their research. They planned to research it further.

The two remaining roommates break away from the group, leaving the person and the math major to discuss further research. One of them asks the other to explain the research to them, they did not understand and knew the researcher would be too excited to explain properly. With luck, their roommate new some of what was said and written.

First, the Thirion were portals into the fae world, fae influence, and fae themselves. Having been interested in the subject before, the roommate had three metal tools with unusual glass; cylinders of gold lattice-work with gemstones around a semi-translucent opalescent polished rock. One was supposed to be able to see a Thirion by looking through the tool. It had never worked for them before, but now they might try again, considering the recent activity.

Time skip.

The master took his prised pupil away for some one-on-one training, leaving the other two to finish the menial, but necessary, work; transmogrify a special kind of stone into thick metal disks. They weren’t resentful for the work they were assigned, nor were they envious of the special treatment she got despite being so new to the order. What did irk them were the innate abilities she possessed. She surpassed everyone, even the master, in being able to bind any creature without effort.

The woman grew frustrated with her work due to her inability to turn some stones. She espied her fellow acolyte turning his with so little effort. She didn’t know why she even bothered, especially with the master's favorite around. In defeat, she asked the guy to turn her pile. The guy tried and failed to turn the stones as well, despite having no beforehand.

They left the challenging stones behind and turned to transmogrify the guy’s remaining stones. They each worked separately and did not talk. Since she wasn’t paying attention, the guy decided to test his easier method. He knew the stones were also meant for practice, but laziness overcame him. He brought out his prototype and sorted through the holographic interface. He selected the number of disks he wanted from the stone and set the device to operate. It from him his energy and used it to slowly but surely transmogrify the stones. It worked!

It worked too well. The device had the disks wake prematurely; and, from them, five child-sized black birds burst forth. Swirling above their heads with screeches, three rapidly grew to adulthood and crashed through the windows. The two that remained stayed young, bound to the one who had summoned them. Without delay, the guy transported them to the airship.

The two acolytes emerged from the clock tower to find the three great birds perched on a neighboring steeple. The woman took out a device to track their intentions, to see what it was they wanted to destroy. They want to destroy the airship, the floating fortress that operated as their base of operations.

The town was almost used to having destructive giants appear out of nowhere and without warning. And they, the acolytes and the master, had bound some of the giants to themselves to fight back. The master developed and piloted the great airship to be able to act anywhere and everywhere a giant appeared. And, that day proved no different as the entire ship was soon alerted to the three giant’s presence. The master had to cut his meeting with the world leaders short to go help.

On the ground, the two acolytes fought with the crows. They became separated as the guy ordered his giant to lead some of the birds away from densely populated areas. During the fight, the birds killed the guy’s giant, leaving him defenseless. The talented girl arrived to help, though she only found the woman acolyte.

The guy felt horrible, he was useless. With no one to help him and his giant dead, he would fight. He would use his own two hands to fix the mess he caused. He leapt from a tall building and landed on one of the giants, sending them both hurtling to the ground. After the crash, another one of the giants landed and snatched the guy by his wrist. The guy tried fighting back, punching the beak of the giant. This only angered the beast. It ripped him apart and pecked at his remains.

The talented girl arrived late with her lion-dog giant to finish off the giant the guy dazed.

The three world leaders followed the master towards the helm of the ship. They chastised him for not being more proactive, that he would let the giants appear at all was outrageous. The master tried to tune them out, to focus on saving the town. Upon entering the helm of the ship, he showed the world leaders what they had been working on: two young giants one of his acolytes had sent him just before the attack. They were able to breed them now, a thing that would allow them to be on the offensive. The three mouthed wordlessly, both inspired and frightened.

The master used the ship’s cannon to blast the two remaining giants with a beam of light.

The master is more irritated at the loss of one of his acolytes than grieved. He wanted to feel sorrow for his death, but the acolyte had found how to reliably hatch the giants and his method died with him. And, it would only be a matter of time before the leaders would find that they did not have a way to breed giants. He would have to find something. Soon.

The talented girl interrupted the master to inform them that she must leave. He begrudgingly accepted, still thinking about how the acolyte might have accomplished what he himself had yet to. The talented girl left to release the giants she held within her, to a secluded field only known by her. She’d been gradually losing control and the fight only expedite things.


	52. Breathless + Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 08/19/2019. Not being able to breath in a dream usually means you are having a hard time breathing in real life. I’m surprised the dream continued on afterwards, so I guess my breathing went back to normal somehow. The demon dream took place right after the dream, though the chronology was lost.

**Breathless**

I rummaged through the crashed ship. And under a heap of rubble laid the core. It may not be operable any longer, its energy still having been broken. Still, I bring it back up to the disk in the partially-intact engine room. I try to have it spin, to have it provide the ship with energy once more. If I couldn’t get it to work, repairing the rest of the ship, or building a new one, would be pointless.

A few of the dark tendrils that were meant to hold the core in place were missing. I hoped to all hope that the fragile disk would not chip, crack, or break. The room began to glow with the core whirring to life. To my dismay, the core was off-kilter and spun out of control, breaking further.

A fellow scientist and I exited the shelter out into the twilight of the alien landscape. We both wore full-body suits as the atmosphere was filled with deadly spores. So dense were the spores that the cavern choked in a perpetual amber haze. The fauna was thought to be hostile, though we could never travel far enough from our base to find out. And the gargantuan plants weren’t toxic, not the ones that we had brought back to the research station. The spores, solely, prevented habitation.

The scientist laid me down on a bed, having declared to me that the experiment should work. Before I could put two and two together, she removed my helmet, letting the spores race to fill my nostrils, throat, lungs. She told me to calm myself, that I should be capable of breathing. I flailed about wildly at the heavy air that made breathing strenuous. I thought death was coming for me. After a few minutes pass after I should have suffocated, I become accustomed to the heaviness of breathing. And the spores' growth in my lungs, that was no longer an issue for me.

I could no longer return to the base for too long, my anatomy was permanently altered to only accept the spore-filled, oxygen-deprived air. I could last an hour or two within the old air of the base, but I would eventually suffocate. Only one of the scientists, the senior, had control of the viscous amber liquid that mutated me. Unbeknownst to me, she had been administering it for days. The one other scientist, likewise, was unaware of her machinations. The entire experiment was unsanctioned.

But what could we do? We had lost contact after the crash and no one has yet come to the station. Might have we been abandoned? No. We, the other scientist and I, later discovered that it was the head scientists that isolated us. It was she who orchestrated everything, to perform the experiment that no moral being would. She held us captive while my anatomy mutated further.

My fellow captive became enraged at the discovery. They exited through the pressurizing chamber and out into the atmosphere without a suit. He raced off. I forced the scientist to give me what she had of the liquid, the small vile that was all that remained. I chased my fellow up out of the cavern.

I heard them before seeing them, cackling mad. They had ascended a bare tree and swung from a branch. I know it’s the spores and lack of oxygen that has them losing their mind. I tried coaxing them down, to return to the ship and get treatment before it was too late. I convinced them to do so, and we started back for the ship. Halfway back, they collapsed. I was too late. In a panic, I had them drink the liquid. Though I loathed the thought of anyone being subject to my fate, I needed them to live.

* * *

**Demons**

As a shapeshifting demon, I had been assigned to a convention. My goals weren’t too clear, I needed to steal ‘something important’.

I get to the building just after the opening ceremony. And, after a little trouble getting through the first gate, I meld into the masses. I wander the main floor, seeking my target. And, while in the crowds, I shift my appearance to someone completely different. It was only at the front gate that my face would need to match my ticket. And the face that I used, well, It would be problematic if I ran into them on the floor. I secretly flipped my lanyard to show the empty back. No one would assume I was hiding anything.

After successfully retrieving the information, some documents on a yet-to-be-released technology, I decided it’s time to leave. I needed to rendezvous with the others and every minute I spent, the more likely someone there would recognize me.

I try to leave by the parking lot, where they shouldn’t care about departing con-goers. I turned around, noting uniformed men and women stopping others who tried to leave. In a shadowed corner, I change back to match faces and walk up to the hulking demon guard.

I meet with the others, and we each take turns sharing what we had gathered.


	53. Great Mind’s Challenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 08/25/2019. Machines advanced enough to have feelings should not be subject to fighting one another.

A great clock tower looms over the vast field. Though it is far off in the distance, its face, glowing like a cat's eye, makes it appear much closer. And above the tower crawls a red symbol, the commencement for the event.

The machine runs towards the tower, spurred on by the threat of those following behind. With a metal pike, they defend themselves from encroaching drones. Some are skewered on the pike, others batted away, all disqualified. The first leg of the competition will thin much of the herd.

The machine is not among those who lost as they arrive to the pits that signify victory. When they decide to enter, they are not allowed to return to the field. There are four pits for them to choose from. Yet, they do not enter any. For they make to further reduce the number of contestants. Any drone, robot, android, or being of metal and circuitry that comes near are terminated. Except, that is, for those who they knew would provide resistance and possible harm. It is not by weaponry that the robots may harm each other, but by 'physical' means; that is, to do harm with attached components.

They have been programmed with brutality. Ripping. Tearing. Crushing. There is one small robot, made in the appearance of a human, that they forcefully unscrewed the head of. They do, among the more advanced machines, make an ally, a friend. And with that friend, they enter chamber C.

Looking through the dividers between each pit, they see there are three in chamber D. And, after the first portion of the competition comes to an end, the barrier between C and D falls away. The group of five will be a team for the next leg.

During the downtime, they sit in the room of green tiles and converse. They share who it was who made them, their level of sapience, and further information that mimics humans (like a question of one’s health). All of them are highly advanced, some claiming to have passed the threshold of sapience, the Turing Test.

Among the group, the friend is thin and simplistic in design. They are sat to the right. To the left is a gender-ambiguous android, replicating features both masculine and feminine humans. They had a visible glowing core in their stomach, a philosopher's stone. To their left is a large, near all weapon, robot. They did not speak, but they did hear and interpret. And to their left is a small robot with an understanding that could only be described as ‘devious’ and ‘clownish.’

The clownish one asks the gender-ambiguous one why it is they are drinking water. They respond by saying it reminds them of their brother. ‘Brother’, in this case, is understood to be one of the same manufacturing and are activated around the same time.

Before the conversation can continue, an announcer blares over a speaker. They inform the victors that they must enter a, newly raised from the ground, chamber to continue. The metal contraption with a domed roof, they knew, was to link their ‘brains’ for them to act as one cohesive unit. The friend refused to enter.


	54. Magic Trick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 08/30/2019. This dream had a lot happen in rapid succession (with little cohesion to boot). So, it’s naturally a lot harder to follow than every other dream so far.

Having rowed up to the island, the world grew distinct and the tribal people were broken from their stasis, having begun to move. Masked guards ushered the guest into a tent. A tent that was only slightly more ornate than the plain ones encircling it. The deity wished to speak to the guest before the villagers were broken from their enchantment.

The guest bowed out from the tent and found themselves in a city. They walked down the paved road and entered a Chinese take-out restaurant. And in that restaurant, they used the coin received from the deity to play one round of a gambling arcade machine. They would do this over and over, each time failing the once before moving to the next machine. They said as much to the man who had been watching them. This was their final loss.

The continued down the street, the other people around walking unhappy as twilight swallowed the sky. It’s only after when night encased the city that they realized they had been walking the wrong direction.

The guest passed by a building lined with decorated guards. They thought to themselves how rich the people who entered must have been. A car that drove up to the complex and disappear captured their attention. Curious, they followed the mystery.

They are halted by a stranger who wished to talk. The stranger has the guest participate in a magic trick, a simple one. As they participated, they watched the car try and back up off the third story balcony. The vehicle becomes stuck, leading to the passengers being forced to disembark. The resident of the apartment close by invited them inside.

The host wished to show them a magic trick. They laid several cards in front of the stranger in a grid, two columns and three rows. The final card placed is the ten of clubs. After all the cards had been revealed, they spun a story the guest did not care too much for. The guest noticed the host slide a card to one person. The trick appeared to have failed, so they try once more.

The first trick, however, was designed to fail. The next trick had the host fan the deck of cards, forcing the king of spades. They invite the stranger to select any card, of their choice, from the deck. They were supposed to think of the card, not to speak it. Then, the ten of clubs was revealed, having the stranger and the guest both gasp in astonishment.


	55. Skater Vampires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 09/01/2019. The vampire thing only comes into play at the very end of the dream.

A man plunged into a hole in the sheet of ice. The onlookers held their breath with him as he swam where he could not resurface. Some were readied to run out and break the ice if he started to falter. But, to the cheers of many, the man made it to the other side of the river. The elder received him and offered his well-earned coat. And his peers, they came to hug him, to congratulate and warm him. He had become a man.

An outsider passed by the celebratory group, having followed the cavernous river for a while. They entered a maroon room and ascended back to the surface. And out of the maroon establishment, they came to a lakeside beach.

The outsider rounded the wooden deck and became dismayed with the reveal of an asphalt street. They had hoped to survey the river from above, but it appeared to be completely underground. They overheard some of the patrons talk about a haunted mall. The building had bared a gruesome mass murder and has been ‘off-limits’ to the public for years. Some of the group decided to visit there, despite the warnings. With their orbed shoes, the outsider trailed the piqued party, skating along the shore.

After a time, they crossed a stretch of sand blackened by something that wasn’t oil. And on the other side of the mar, they rolled up to the dilapidated indoor mall. With their bikes, skates, and skateboards, they performed rad stunts and tricks on the expensive-looking furniture. The outsider joined them, performing tricks with them as if they coincidentally happened across the place at the same time. No one would care, no one would know.

After a long day of trespassing and vandalism, the group decided to head home. The outsider pulled one to the side and requested that they follow. Hesitantly, they capitulate and follow the outsider to a secluded area. The outsider recognized the worry etched in their face and reassures them that no harm will come. They are lead through a door and out onto a porch perched over a birthday party. The outsider begins to speak in earnest, knowing the din of the party will prevent any nosey walls from hearing. The outsider asks if they know about vampires. This confused the skater, leaving them unable to formulate a response.

Soldiers in modern, aggressive armor raid the area, sending the partygoers fleeing in all directions. The outsider prepares to flee, but not before deciding against it. They tell the soldiers they will go willingly if they leave their compatriots well alone. The outsider plans for the soldiers to assume the one he was with was a vampire, though that would be inaccurate.


	56. Liberation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 11/26/2019. The whole scenario seems to be extrapolated from a book I've been reading recently. This didn’t happen in the book, but I think the setting was from the book.

They’d come to an empty abbey to survey the city below. Well, as much of the city they could see before the haze of smog choked their sight. They wandered and found themselves following a cracked asphalt that wound through a young forest. The orphanage looms over the road. It’s not at the end of the road, only a stop along the way. They had come with a purpose, though they would not be welcomed.

They entered unopposed, it seemed most of the staff were away. They proceeded to rip cabinet drawers off the walls and sent howling gales barreling down the halls. The young kept there were like them, able to control the world around them. The world did not appreciate being subject to another’s will. So the world kept them there, despite their protests. And the world kept them there, prohibiting them from refining their control.

They had come to free these societal captives. To achieve that, they had to first create as much of a ruckus as they could. This would force the world’s hand, to allow police and maybe the military to come in and see those stowed away. Killing two birds with one stone, they would cause a distraction for some to escape. They would force the world to notice them, to face their needless fear of them.

The police did come and then the soldiers soon followed. The chief officer informed a soldier that the culprit hid themselves in an elevator. There wasn’t really anywhere else to hide, they had already reduced most of the building to shambles. Not for a lack of trying, the building still stood.

The police and the military could not prevent the media from swarming the site. Cameras and personalities all wanted to capture the “shocking” revelation as it unfolded. Stories of how so many innocent children were detained against their will. How the government, as they spoke, tried to bury the truth. That was the narrative they’d spun.

With their work done, they slipped past the blockade and met with some of the escapees at the pre-decided location. The thick fog only obscured all but the blaring lights in the distance and one or two indistinct shadows move about. The escapees wanted them to stay longer, to aid them further. They can not. They, with a heavy heart, assure the appointed leader of the escapees that their huddle will find them again. The now-free group will hear of them again from a news story far off.

They melted into the fog and vanished.


	57. Unwitting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed on 11/28/2109. It wasn’t viewed as bad that I was using the spirits of the dead to protect me. It was just another thing.

They lead their companion up the house’s stairs, eager to share their discovery. They climb to where the pristine banister is cut off by the ceiling, but not quite to the second floor. The hidden room is sandwiched underneath the floorboards of the second story and above the ceiling of the first. They punch into the drywall, creating a porthole to what everyone had forgotten about. In a slender room there sat a plump but puny man. The man struggles to get up from their lounge chair, even though they were surprised by the sound and intrusion. It was expected of the man to be running a treadmill that generated electricity for the house. But there he stands, stained t-shirt reflecting the light of the flickering TV.

They become shocked, then angry, then confused after discovering him slacking on his duties. Despite the man’s slacking, the two boxes that the treadmill's wires ran into (one for plumbing and the other for power) are both intact and functioning. How could this man have stopped; he should not have stopped; why is the power still running?

Recovering from the flurry of emotions, they see it is no longer just the man living there. A woman holds a small child away, afraid at the giants that stare down at them. That the man has a child, he must not have been working for quite a while now. They grow more confused, how could they not have noticed when the man had stopped. And, who’s now generating the power?

The answer should have been obvious, they had influenced another to manage their job. A small being is propped up by the wires and looking directly at them. In a heartbeat, they knew the being was a long sealed away evil. Or something similar, the stories are muddy. The man released this being, just to make it so he could be lazy. How stupid. The being, how long were they out? They must have been plotting all this time, waiting to be found. And the discovery now, it forces them to action.

They attempt to flee through the basement, though they are more chased there. They lock the doors behind them, a stopgap. It holds long enough for them to wiggle out of the slit of a window and away from the house.

They run to where their twin is buried out back and dig up their coffin. This will be the last time they can ask their dead twin for help, the last time that they will see them. They hesitate, debating on if things were so dire that they needed to resort to this. Things are and they will need all the help they can get. They open the driftwood coffin and unlatch the trunk inside. They waken their twin and their spirit screams.

The spirit races away from the encroaching evil things; they dart after. They run by a park when they hear their name called softly and out of focus. The spirit does not see that they change course and continues without them. They follow the voice instructions and trapeze across the shadow cast by a basketball hoop. They follow orders and jump the fence before looking back to the spirit. It's enough for them to regain some sense. The voice they were following, it’s the evil influencing their own thoughts. The spirit, finally taking the time to seek its charge, comes to retrieve them as their shadow vanishes.


End file.
